


hachikireru

by vaudelin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Castiel (Supernatural), Caring Castiel (Supernatural), Case Fic, Castiel Can Hear Longing (Supernatural), Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Fandom Trumps Hate 2020, First Kiss, Gen, Ghost Sickness (Supernatural), Grief/Mourning, Lost Castiel (Supernatural), Love Confessions, M/M, POV Castiel (Supernatural), Post-Episode: s15e03 The Rupture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:03:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27920464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaudelin/pseuds/vaudelin
Summary: With Jack dead and the Winchesters still shaken by Chuck's big reveal, Castiel departs the bunker following one final, fateful argument with Dean.Now directionless, on his own in a world that doesn’t want him, Castiel reaches for one of the few threads still tying him to Earth: Claire Novak, seeking vengeance against Kaia's killer, has found another lead in Minnesota, and she doesn't mind him coming along as she investigates the case.Perhaps it will be enough to convince Castiel there's still a place for him here without the Winchesters—even when Sam and Dean show up unannounced, complicating an increasingly strange case with their presence.Fresh wounds will need to heal if they’re all going to make it out alive. Castiel only hopes Dean has it within him to forgive him once again.
Relationships: Castiel & Claire Novak, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Kaia Nieves/Claire Novak
Comments: 42
Kudos: 363
Collections: Fandom Trumps Hate 2020, The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	1. PART ONE

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BunnyMcBunnister](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BunnyMcBunnister/gifts).



> _はち切れる: to be filled to bursting, to burst_
> 
> * * *
> 
> Here comes the second auction fic for FTH 2020! Thank you for requesting a Cas-centric casefic highlighting the strengths and imperfections of our favourite angel. It's been a real treat coming up with a case that brings him together with characters we seldom see him around, as well as forcing Dean and Cas to confront their feelings for each other ❤

The truck headlights sliver open the night, leaving the smallest seam for Castiel to slip through on his escape from the bunker. His body trembles, hands flexing on the steering wheel. Breaths he does not need come fast and arrhythmic, churning over what was said.

He tried to change the ending. He tried reaching out to Dean, again and again. But nothing changed. He still hasn’t learned.

Dean wouldn’t have this any other way.

Outside the corona of his brights, barbed wire fences weave in and out of ditch grass. Trees pass as black clouds rustling in the breeze. Farmhouses drift and doze, their denizens silent, fast asleep.

The road measures out ahead of him in increments. Driving, driving. Going nowhere. Only a direction in the dark.

Signage eventually indicates his departure from Kansas, then arrival in Nebraska. Castiel gets as far as Omaha before the gas tank tips toward empty, warning chimes counting down his final fifty miles.

Twenty-five.

Ten.

At five to empty, Castiel lifts his foot from the pedal, coasting onto the shoulder with his hazard lights on. The truck limps its way off the highway onto a darkened service road. A town crops up at his side, too small for streetlights to glimmer in the night. The lone gas station stands silent, pumps closed.

Castiel nudges the truck onto the empty gravel plot next door, turns the key, kills the headlights. All he can do is wait for the morning, nothing but the past day to occupy his mind.

Rowena. Belphegor.

Dean. Sam.

Jack.

_Why does that something always seem to be you?_

The radio fuzzes, awaiting a proper signal. Castiel takes a shuddering breath. His body courses with chemicals entirely too human in their composition, his hands trembling outside of his control. He fumbles, withdraws his keys and pushes open the door, collapsing into the night.

His footsteps crunch. Rock. Broken glass.

Cricket-song dapples the air like rain.

The gas station sits on a small strip with two other stores, both boarded up, the spot where signs used to hang now ghostly pale against the stucco. Grimy windows distort the pale neon glow of a motel sign, sitting opposite on the single lane. A dozen doors angle out towards the road, only two of which have vehicles parked nearby.

If he were traveling with Sam or Dean, they would be tired by now, and need a room. But Castiel isn’t, and he doesn’t. He has no escape in slumber.

Castiel drops back against his truck’s dusty tailgate and stares out at the cool autumn night, the stars above like crisp holes punched into the black sky. His senses flutter out beyond him, brushing over the road, the motel, the field mice rustling in the distance. Broken wings lift on an unfelt breeze and settle like a skim of dust upon everything within reach.

His thoughts return. He sees Jack screaming—Belphegor screaming—Castiel’s palm glowing, smashed flat above his blackened eyes—

The dead look in Dean’s eyes as he watched Castiel walk away.

Castiel reels back into his body, wings withdrawing, cradling him close. He doesn’t want to think about how he left. Had to leave. Where he has left to go.

There’s heaven. Except heaven feels less like a place he belongs, these days. More like a distant obligation. It’s nowhere he wants to be. Beyond heaven there was the bunker, his true home, but now—

Nothing. Not anymore. He can go anywhere except the one place he wants to be.

A door bangs closed nearby. When Castiel looks, he finds a woman approaching from the motel’s main office, her arms crossed, shoulders up against the wind. She stops a few feet out from the service road, and in a carrying voice, calls out, “D’you need help? Want me to call triple-A?”

Castiel straightens. “I’m fine,” he calls back. “Just short of fuel.”

“A’ight.” She hangs there awkwardly, wind tugging loose her braid. “You need a room then? A phone?”

Castiel realizes, abruptly, how strange he must look, staring out at the motel in the middle of the night. The least awkward move would be to accept her gesture, so she can leave him guilt-free. He says, “If I could make a call…”

The woman plugs a thumb over her shoulder. “Main office has a landline. C’mon.”

Castiel crosses the deserted service road, abandoning his truck for the night to its final resting place. The woman hangs around the front door, waving him inside with an impatient form of courtesy. The light above them thrums electric; a pair of moths bump their bodies against the bare bulb.

The woman pushes her way through the door behind the check-in desk, then comes out from the office with a beat-up beige phone base, a long telephone wire trailing behind.

“Dial nine, then your number,” she tells him, the base clanging onto the chipped formica desk.

Castiel picks up the receiver, and in that moment, with the dial tone droning in his ear, realizes how foolish it was to make _this_ his human gesture. He mentally rifles through his contact list, trying to come up with who else he knows outside of Sam and Dean. Who out there won’t begrudge him for making a call after midnight.

There’s one person, maybe. Hopefully.

Sighing, Castiel dials her number, already rehearsing his apologies in his head.

The call connects after two measly rings. Claire is alert—wary—as she answers. “Who’s this?”

Right. An unknown number. Her voice is a relief, even as Castiel realizes his mistake. “Claire. I’m sorry to be bothering you so late.”

A breath puffs into the line, crackling it. “Cas.” Her voice unexpectedly brightens. “It’s been a while. Hi.”

“Hello.” Castiel rubs at his eye, wishing he had the prowess to navigate what this conversation might entail. “How are you?”

“Good, good.” She pauses. “So, uh, not that I’m not glad to hear from you but—it’s late. Why’re you up?”

“I don’t sleep,” Castiel reminds her. “I’m more concerned why you’re awake.”

“Figures.” Claire laughs noisily into the receiver. “Out on lookout at the moment. Just waiting for my suspect to show.”

“You’re on a case?” Castiel comes alive. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, _Jody_ , I’m fine.” A sigh, weary. “‘S a dead-end anyways. I’m heading home in the morning.”

Sioux Falls. A thought forms rapid-fire. “I’m driving that direction. I might—I could stop in at Jody’s as well. If it’s okay.”

“Yeah? So maybe I’ll see you there?” Claire sounds cautiously happy, like she might actually be interested in seeing him.

It’s enough to form his decision.

“Yes,” Castiel says firmly. “I’ll be there.”

“Cool. See you then.”

As he hangs up, Castiel gives his thanks to the motel woman. She grunts her appreciation, collecting the lanky phone line around her hand. “So you need a room or what?”

“Yes, please,” Castiel replies, reaching for his wallet. Only a few bills line the leather, but he has enough to easily cover a room and another tank of gas, first thing in the morning.

The woman gives him the key to room eleven, leaving Castiel on his way. He dips out of the office with a grim smile and small wave. Above, the lightbulb continues to tinkle softly with the frantic tapping of the moths, their small bodies battering against the glass.

Sioux Falls. It’s enough of a direction for now. Castiel can spend a day there before making further plans.

* * *

The gas station opens shortly after sunrise, allowing Castiel to refuel and arrive at Jody’s only a couple hours into daylight. He parks on the street down from the house, staring out at the yellow siding, the white front door. Claire’s hatchback is nosed up behind a Jeep and Jody’s SUV, fall leaves collecting on roofs and beneath wipers. It’s late enough in the morning that Castiel should be safe announcing his arrival.

So he knocks, and when Jody opens the door, Castiel doesn’t begrudge her for the way her smile freezes, her gaze instinctively pulling past his shoulder—looking for Sam or Dean.

“Cas, right?” Jody says, pointing. Her smile grows, bundling brightly beneath her eyes. Unprepared, but happy to see him; a running theme between her and Claire. “Claire mentioned you were coming. Nice to finally meet you.”

“You as well,” Castiel says warmly. “Thank you for allowing me to stop by uninvited.”

“Please. You’re practically family.” Jody extends her arms, pulling him into a hug. “Anytime.”

“Oh.” Castiel wraps his arms around her, briefly, before letting go. “Thank you.” It helps ease the guilt he feels for his imposition.

“Alright,” Jody says. “Come in. We’re letting in the cold.”

Castiel is ushered into the front living room, onto a swath of pale carpet that has seen better days. Rather than sit, Jody bypasses the couch en route to the kitchen, where someone is gently opening and closing cabinet doors. Castiel follows in hopes of finding Claire, but it’s Patience who’s currently occupying the kitchen—making pancakes, from the looks of the boxes and bowls strewn across the countertops.

“Jody, where’s the vegan mix? Or does regular mix count, and we just…” Patience trails off, reading the ingredient list. “Oh. Okay. So we’re good?”

“We’re good,” Jody confirms. “Just follow the box, but use bananas instead of eggs.”

“Got it.” Patience resumes her assault on the kitchen, collecting a carton from the fridge and a masher from a drawer. Castiel thinks briefly of Dean, milling around the bunker kitchen, humming as he prepped greasy breakfasts for Sam and Jack. But those days are long gone.

To Castiel, Jody explains, “It’s so Alex can join in, when she wakes up later.”

“She’s here as well?” Castiel looks around, but besides Patience and Jody, the house shows no outward signs of life.

“Sleeping in,” Patience supplies. “Late shift last night.”

“And Claire…?”

“Napping too, I think.” Jody frowns. “Or doing laundry? She disappeared into her bedroom as soon as she got here.”

Patience snorts. “She’s probably stealing clean clothes for her go-bag.”

“Oh god, don’t even joke about that. Alex will be so mad...” Jody resolves her grimace into a solid smile. “Do you eat breakfast, Cas? Want to join us?”

Castiel opens his mouth, ill-equipped to answer, when a door banging down the hall saves him from responding.

Claire bounces into the fray with her phone in both hands, grinning as she taps excitedly on the screen. Her book bag, unzipped, swings heavily from one arm. “Heya, Cas. About time you got here.”

“You too, missy,” Jody says, reaching for her. Claire groans but leans in, giving Jody a distracted hug. “How many pancakes do you want for breakfast?”

Claire’s nose wrinkles as she starts snapping open cabinets, rifling within. “Can’t. Found a lead in Minnesota. I gotta leave now if I want to get there in time to question witnesses today.”

Jody hauls Claire back before she can leave the kitchen, stuffing handfuls of to-go soup packets and granola bars into her bag as she moves. “Wait, first you were in Montana, now you think she’s in Minnesota? All in less than a day?”

Claire scoffs. “Lead didn’t pan out yesterday, so clearly she’s not in Montana.”

Jody stammers through a comeback, and Castiel smiles at their banter—Jody fussing for more concrete details than “somewhere in Minnesota,” Claire bristling at the perceived encroachment on her independence.

When Jody asks why she can’t take a day off, maybe catch up on her sleep at home, Claire counters, heated, “It can’t wait. I’m not letting Kaia’s killer escape.”

“I just—” Jody sighs, moved but still reluctant. “Worry about you. Out there so much on the road, alone. Hasn’t your car been acting funny since you ran over that vampire?”

Claire makes an impatient noise. “It’s just the radiator. I know how to top it up.”

“I know, you’re more than capable of handling yourself,” Jody says, softer. “But with the way you’ve been going, I don’t want to see you broken down, on your own, stranded in some strange town.”

Claire’s expression shifts from exasperated to fiendishly bright. “But I’m not going alone. I’m taking Cas with me—he’s here to help. Right, Cas?” she adds archly, blue eyes alighting on him, taut with hidden intent.

“Uh.” Castiel clears his throat. “Uh, yes.” He lifts his chin, announcing proudly, “I’m here to join Claire on her case.”

“See?” Claire whips her smile back onto Jody, dazzling. “We can take his truck. No reason to be worried.”

Jody’s mouth hangs open, clearly wanting to disagree despite the foundation of her argument crumbling beneath her. She glances between Castiel and Claire, measuring. Deciding. “Alright,” she says slowly. “But you need to call me every day, keep me posted. And no jumping into trouble without Cas there as backup.”

Claire rolls her eyes. “Fine. Fine, so can we go?”

Jody exchanges a look with Castiel, something plaintive behind her eyes. Her head twitches towards Patience, who is absently mixing batter, attention clearly attuned to the conversation.

Castiel glances at the pancake batter. Haltingly, he says, “It would be nice if we could have breakfast before we leave.”

Claire stares him down, her expression declaring, _I know you don’t eat things_. “Fine,” she says stiffly. To Jody, she recites, “And I’ll set the table.”

“Thank you,” Jody sing-songs in reply, giving an additional appreciative glance to Castiel once Claire turns away.

Castiel returns a small smile and ducks his head, grateful he could help in such a small way.

* * *

After an hour out on the road, Claire’s yawns come more frequently than her conversation, her late nights catching up and taking her captive. She bunkers down in the passenger seat and begins to gently doze, her hooded sweatshirt folded into a bundle, fabric wedged between the window and her shoulder. Her soft snores accompany the silence in the cab, scarcely heard above the noise of the road.

Castiel turns the heat up, the radio down. He doesn’t mind her absence; he’s more than accustomed to driving alone, the passing scenery his only company.

He turns from east I-90 onto MN-60, cutting northeast through dusty fields shorn prickly and pale from harvest. The sky overhead is dull gray, a sheet of sulky clouds threatening an uninspired rain. The scenery remains static until he darts farther north, cutting a line up between Minneapolis and St. Cloud, sticking to back roads that cough up gravel dust in plumy streams behind him.

There, the trees grow more abundant, striped birch and green conifers encroaching on the ditches in lines that grow increasingly dense. By an hour out from Eveleth, their destination, the open prairies are a distant memory, the birch crowded out in favor of black spruce and jack pines.

Such forests and clouds remind him of Washington, of driving the west coast with Kelly, searching for someplace safe for her baby to be born. A different truck, a different drive. Another fateful destination, ending with a blade in his back, wings burnt to ash.

Jack’s face flashes in mind, his easy grin quickly eclipsed by blackened eyes and a shout—a scream—Castiel pushing his palm into Jack’s brow—Jack gaping, struggling—except it’s not him, he can’t be—

Castiel squeezes the steering wheel to steady himself; its embroidery digs patterned trenches into his palms. His thoughts scatter like startled birds, swept up along an unforgiving current back to his failures, again and again.

Rowena.

Jack.

Mary.

Dean’s voice, echoing.

_If she’s… then you’re dead to me_.

Unbidden, Castiel glances across the cab to Claire, her feet up on the dashboard, body contorted so that her chest is cradled by her knees. It frightens him, the thought of failing another one of his wards.

He has to do better. Has to do everything he can for Claire.

His phone buzzes, startling him. Castiel fishes it out from the center console, the screen lit up by an incoming text. He jams the phone face down against his thigh, a finger held over the power button until he has no hope of looking at the name.

Claire comes to amid the ruckus, once the device has settled in his pocket, weighing him down like a stone. She frowns out at the passing countryside, hands instinctively shifting to her own phone. She blinks down at it groggily. “Shit. How much farther?”

“Twenty minutes, due north.” Stilted, Castiel asks, “Did you sleep well?”

Claire grunts an affirmation, pulling her sweatshirt back on. Her head pops out from the hood in a cloud of blonde hair. She tucks the worst of the flyaways behind her ears, staring sleepily out at the road ahead.

The silence feels strange, now that Castiel isn’t the only one observing it. He grasps around, awkward, for conversation topics that won’t end badly. Something that won’t cost him more than his reluctance to break the quiet.

An innocuous question, maybe. Something to the point of their journey. Castiel clears his throat. “You never mentioned what drew you to the case.”

Claire glances up from her phone. She shrugs. “It’s probably nothing. But this article online mentioned a town having a bunch of strange sightings. Some ‘cloaked’ figure appearing across multiple neighbourhoods in the past week.” Claire unlocks her phone screen. “It sounded like it could be Kaia’s killer caught prowling.”

“I see.” It’s shaky logic, assuming such a figure could be anything but a burglar, but there’s no point in saying that aloud.

Sure enough, Claire is watching him sharply, measuring the skepticism she can gather on his face. “Look, you don’t have to believe this is a thing, but—I have to treat every case like it could be her killer. Until I find the one that’s actually right.”

“I understand,” Castiel says, hoping his support for her is obvious in the simple sentiment. “I’m assuming you have witnesses to question once we’re there?”

“Damn straight.” Claire comes to life as she unzips her bookbag, fishing her laptop out from its depths. She reads aloud the most recent article for Castiel’s reference, highlighting what the witnesses saw earlier in the week: namely, a dark figure, most likely a woman. Someone who disappeared before she could be approached.

“So we’ll find the witnesses and ask for details,” Claire summarizes. “If it doesn’t seem like a match for Kaia’s killer, we can wash our hands of it and walk away.”

“A solid plan,” Castiel says, smiling. At least Claire seems clearheaded enough to not assume Kaia’s killer will be found. But for her to come into the case already assuming her lead is mismatched to her goal... It saddens Castiel to think of how much disappointment Claire must have faced so far, for her first instinct to be that she’s already following another dead end.

* * *

As they complete the last stretch of the drive, Claire exchanges her hoodie for a rumpled suit blazer dug out from the bottom of her bag. She navigates them down the streets of Eveleth, directing Castiel toward a neighborhood where the prowler was most recently spotted. Castiel parks them a block down from the address in question, on a road the locals likely consider the outskirts of town.

The witness’s house is located on a thinly-asphalted street, the yards nearby delineated by tall trees and thick brush along the far perimeter of the curbless road. It would be a difficult direction for a person to escape without help, if the prowler were truly Kaia’s killer. But if they somehow managed to break through the brush line, the forest would certainly make for a difficult pursuit.

“That’s the house,” Claire says, pointing to a cozy two-storey farmhouse halfway down the street, sided with dusty white vinyl. Stringy grass grows along the edges of a rusting chain-link fence surrounding the property, nosed up against the sidewalk, running parallel to the street.

“And the name?” Castiel asks.

“Lorna Moreno,” Claire replies. “Married, no kids. That I could find online, at least.”

Claire crosses the empty gravel driveway and steps through the disheveled chain gate, thumping up the bare wood steps to the front door. She raps her knuckles against the door, then her fist, but no answer comes.

“Damnit,” Claire grumbles. She peers through the filmy window, then glances behind her. Castiel joins her in rapidly looking around, although he’s not certain what goal Claire has in mind.

At the next door over, a neighbor is out tending to her front flower beds, bucking up the season’s final blooms in the dirt patch set along the bottom of a covered porch. Claire crosses over to her and Castiel follows, curious.

“Hey,” Claire says loudly, flashing a badge when the neighbor, startled, looks up. “We’re here to see the Morenos. About the prowler she saw earlier this week?”

Something in what Claire said makes the neighbor snort loudly. Castiel exchanges a frown with Claire, then asks, “Were you privy to the event in question?”

“Oh, I’m sure Lorna _thought_ she saw something.” The neighbor clucks, throwing a hand dramatically toward the front of her house. “My husband and I were on the deck that same evening and we saw _nothing_ of the commotion Lorna’s been telling the papers about. Something about a dark figure, right? The way she makes it sound, it’s like some childhood friend had just shown up dripping in _blood_. Of course, Lorna’s alway been overdramatic, _begging_ to be the center of local gossip, so I wouldn’t put it past her to tell such a tall tale…”

Castiel and Claire share a look. An exaggerative neighbor wasn’t exactly part of the plan.

“Okay,” Castiel says slowly. “Still. We’d like to speak to her personally, discuss the matter in detail.”

“All part of the procedure,” Claire adds. “Gotta go through the proper channels before we can advise on anything.”

“Oh _believe_ me, I get it,” the neighbor says. “I’m just surprised you came here and not the hospital. If you want to talk to Lorna, you’ll need to find her there instead.”

“Hospital?” Claire balks.

“Mm-hmm. She was picked up by _ambulance_ yesterday morning. Her husband Eamon called it; he hasn’t said too much about what happened.” She makes a superficial, sympathetic noise. “I do hope she hasn’t frayed her nerves with all that fussing about.”

“Right,” Castiel says blandly. They weren’t going to see anything useful come from this. Catching Claire’s eye, he motions his head back to the road before he says, “Thank you for your time.”

“Good luck getting the _truth_ out of her,” the neighbor calls indignantly, returning to her work in the flower beds.

It’s a quiet walk back to Castiel’s truck, punctuated solely by Claire’s low cursing over the audacity of that neighbor, judging their witness within an inch of incompetency.

Inside the truck cab, Castiel asks, “What’s next?”

“So maybe the first witness is a bust,” Claire admits. “Lorna could be a liar, but we’ve got two more people backing her up. I’m thinking we should split up? You can drop me off downtown to find our second guy, Ian Bellamy. I’ll interview him while you check out Lorna at the hospital.”

“I prefer that we don’t split up,” Castiel says, adding gravely, “I promised Jody I would look out for you.”

Claire rolls her eyes, sighing. “The second witness is a teenager, Cas. We’re not gonna get any info from him if we both roll up as Feds. Just let me handle him, okay?”

Between the two of them, Claire is certainly better equipped for handling her age group. “Okay,” Castiel says reluctantly. He starts up the truck, then pauses, frowning. “How exactly do you know where Ian is right now?”

Laughing, Claire wags her phone at him across the center console. “Because half of his Facebook friends have already added me on Snapchat, and they just advertised where they’re going to be.”

* * *

Castiel drops Claire off, per her instructions, in front of a pizza shop simmering with teenage children spending an afternoon laughing and grazing slices from each other’s plates. She offers him a brief wave and a smile, and it warms him to see it. He then drives to the distant end of town, rolling up outside the clinic considered the town’s only hospital.

Castiel has seldom spent time in hospitals, barring the few times he fell victim to the weaknesses of his human vessel, almost a decade ago. The last time he was in such a place, it was for Jack, who had been dying—who had died, after, suffering the collapse of the angelic half of his being.

At the time, the malaise of the building’s other inhabitants had been but background noise to Castiel, whose entire focus had been on Jack: his fear, his pain, his breathing. Castiel had no capacity to worry about those humans around him who were likewise struggling to live.

Now, it’s all Castiel can sense, even at a distance from the clinic’s red-bricked walls and dark inset windows. The people inside are a swirl of blended emotions—disappointment and exhaustion, hope and despair. All so strong, yet frail at the same time. Castiel parks in the farthest lot from the doors, leaving the nearest spaces for anyone who might need more urgent assistance; the distance isn’t enough to escape the shiver of unwellness that bleeds from the occupants inside.

In the lobby, Castiel approaches the front check-in with his badge already in hand.

“Moreno,” the receptionist repeats, typing into her system. She looks up from her computer, gaze trained over the top of her half-moon glasses. “You here about her transfer?”

Castiel frowns down at his badge, debating the merits of showing it again. “No, I just need to ask her a few questions.”

The receptionist sighs, rolling back her chair in a practiced gesture. Neck craning, she stares down the ward hall and flags her fingers at whoever she sees. A nurse in green scrubs comes over, moving at a mock-sluggish pace. The receptionist asks, “Is a Fed allowed to see Lorna?”

The nurse frowns, his crossed arms landing on the desk partition. He squints down at her computer, gathering context. “I mean, I guess?” he says slowly, to which the receptionist waves him away with an order to take Castiel to Moreno’s room.

The nurse sighs but does as instructed, directing Castiel to follow him toward the patient rooms.

“So what’re you hoping to get from Lorna,” the nurse asks, “considering her present state?”

Castiel frowns. “Present state?”

“Ah. Well, you’ll see.” The nurse rolls his eyes, pushing open the doors to the next wing. “Is she a witness to something? I know her,” he adds as if it were necessary, coming from a small town. “I wouldn’t expect her to get mixed up in something dangerous.”

“I’m not allowed to comment on the case,” Castiel says, solemn. The nurse tuts, but lets the conversation fall away.

As they walk, a sensation building in the hospital takes over Castiel’s higher senses. The white noise of human suffering, pungent even in the parking lot, gives way to an intangible rise in his awareness the further they head down the hall. His wings spread involuntarily, scouring the aether of untold dimensions, seeking a source. Something about the sensation tightens around the thought of Dean, hitting Castiel in an overwhelming rush of sense memory.

Castiel's mind flinches back—he feels again the ice inside Dean’s final glare cutting through him, as Castiel retreats up the bunker stairs. Damaged feathers ruffle to twice their usual size, prickling with an instinct to defend himself from a threat he can scarcely perceive.

With a jolt Castiel realizes he must have grown weaker than he previously thought. If his environment can remain so inscrutable, bending him to its whims...

They turn down a short side hall. The nurse waves a hand toward a closed door with a glass window inset. “She’s in there.”

The sensation is strong enough to have Castiel approaching the closed door regardless of the nurse’s suggestion. He peers inside a small window to find a woman lying prone in the room’s lone bed, blue sheets tucked high around her chest. Her arms hang slack at her side, her chest scarcely moving with each breath. A man—her husband—sits beside her bed, his hands cupping her lax one, their fingers threaded together.

The woman’s hair color matches the photo Claire had for Lorna, but that’s about as much as Castiel can say the two images reflect the same person. This version of Lorna seems limp as a doll—eyes listless, skin sallow, cheeks hollowed; her body nowhere near the temple of vitality observed in the photo’s sunny smile.

Castiel takes a step back from the door. The sensation thrums around him, building like an echo of something Castiel has felt before. He looks to the nurse. “Can I go in?”

With a wince, the nurse says, “We prefer her environment to be kept stable until we can find a medication regimen that works for her. It’s bad enough allowing her husband in ‘round the clock.”

“What happened to her?”

The nurse shrugs. “She was brought in yesterday morning. Ol’ Eamon says it just came out of the blue. All evening the night before last, they were joking and laughing. Even went for a walk around the neighbourhood. But by the time they got up in the morning, she was curled up in bed, unresponsive.”

“She went mute?” Castiel asks, alarmed.

“She went _everything_ ,” the nurse answers. “Doesn’t make eye contact. Won’t hardly move or take care of herself. Sometimes she mumbles a couple words, but that’s it. Not even her husband can get a sentence out of her.” The nurse steps closer to the door, looking in with what seems like deep reluctance. “Lorna’s from my neighborhood. She’s always been the bright and cheerful kind, but now here she is, on a psych hold until they transfer her to a health center. Unless Eamon signs off on a discharge first.”

“I see.” Castiel approaches the window again, studying Lorna, limp on the hospital cot. Her mouth twitches, held in a way Castiel can only call melancholic, lost down some deep internal well of misery.

Her husband, Eamon, head bowed over their entwined hands, kisses each of her knuckles in turn.

Castiel’s wings unfurl again of their own volition. His remaining feathers shiver, sending ripples through unseen planes of existence.

“Sorry you came all the way for nothing,” the nurse says.

Castiel hums, thoughtful. He allows his wings to flutter as the nurse leads him back down the hall, stretched wide enough to touch the life force of each patient as he walks by, the source of that unsettling sensation being sought. He follows the strange echo through the ward as if it were a current of energy, attuning himself to its ebb and flow.

The feeling dissipates the further he walks, then builds again, to a strength sufficient to have Castiel impulsively looking through the doorway of another room.

A teenage boy is on a bed inside, curled up on his side, back to the door. Something within Castiel stretches toward the boy as if to comfort, some compulsion telling him something is different about this child.

“Agent?” the nurse asks.

Castiel snaps out of his stupor. His wings flex, pulling back, the sensation breaking with the motion. Blessedly, neither nurse nor patient could sense the intrinsic change in his posture.

“Thank you for your time,” Castiel says in lieu of a farewell. Under the nurse’s watchful eye, he returns to the clinic’s main entrance and exits into the parking lot.

Outside, he’s surprised to find Claire perched on the curb down from the smoking section, arms hunched over her crooked knees. She perks up when she sees him, tucks her phone away. “Hey.”

“What are you doing here already? I thought you would need more time to question the witness.”

“So did I,” Claire agrees, “but guess where the guy is right now.”

Castiel looks over his shoulder, at the clinic entrance. “Don’t tell me.”

“Uh-huh,” Claire says. “Friends said Ian was real moody during a hangout the night before last. Then yesterday morning, he wouldn’t get out of bed, so his parents took him here. I’m not a family member so they won’t let me in to see him, but…”

“I think I saw him,” Castiel confirms.

“Awesome,” Claire deadpans. “How was Lorna, by the way? What happened to her?”

Castiel stares at the entrance, a sense of dread building within him. “I don’t know. But something odd is going on here.”

“Yeah,” Claire says, equally dour. “Yeah.”

* * *

With the day almost over, the sun a beaded line through the trees, they have little choice but to postpone their investigation until morning. Castiel drives past Ian’s home on Claire’s orders, gaining an idea of where that sighting occurred. He then drives Claire around town until she locates a restaurant that best suits her dinner cravings. They convene at a sports bar off the highway, in a rustic nook hollowed out for the sole purpose of serving beer and chicken wings.

After their orders are placed—decaf coffee and a burger for Claire, plus a sandwich for Castiel, to be doggy-bagged for her breakfast tomorrow—Claire pulls a tablet out from her bookbag, fiddles around with the applications until a writing pad pops up. Castiel sees paragraphs of typed notes within the document, Kaia’s name peppered through most every line.

“So here’s what we have so far,” Claire begins, cracking her knuckles. She finger-types onto the screen as she recites the current results of their investigation, allowing Castiel to add to or correct her summation of the day.

Their meals arrive. Claire steals a sizable portion of Castiel’s fries, citing how “gross” leftover fries will be in the morning.

“So the case is probably a bust for Kaia,” Claire says. “But there’s something weird going on here, right? Maybe not just with the people, but the town itself.”

“Right,” Castiel agrees.

Claire hums, a hand perched on her chin. She taps her tablet, scrolling through her notes. “Tell me again about what Lorna looked like. What you saw of probably-Ian. You said there’s this… feeling, around them?”

“It’s hard to explain.” Castiel presses his palm flat to the table, his fingers fanning out. “They seemed despondent. Melancholy. But more than that…” He sighs, frustrated by the limitations of verbal language. “There is a current of— _something_ , in the air around them. It felt like an echo. A sense memory. I wanted to reach for them and I didn’t know why.” He folds his hands together. “It tugged at my wings hard enough I had to fight to tuck them away.”

“Damn.” Claire’s eyes widen as she chews her lip, seemingly caught off-guard by the reminder that there are parts of Castiel she cannot visualize.

Castiel clears his throat. “I doubt this is the case, but I’m not familiar enough with human emotions to know: could they both have... depression?”

Claire snorts. “Maybe? But it doesn’t usually come over so strong, so fast, or so similarly.” She pushes a spoon through her coffee, mixing in another sugar packet Castiel is confident she doesn’t need; the conglomeration already has far too much sweetener.

Claire thinks about, then shakes her head. “Ian’s friends told me something weird about that night he saw the prowler. A group of them had been walking home after hanging out at one of their houses. Ian swore he saw some dark figure appear on the street ahead of them. But none of the others could see it except him.”

“None of them?”

“Exactly,” Claire confirms. “They figured he was trying to freak them out, wrote it off as a joke. But when his parents mentioned the prowler sightings being brought up on their neighbourhood app, Ian spoke up about his sighting too. They went to the sheriff about it.”

“And nothing came of it,” Castiel says.

“Yep,” Claire agrees. “At least not until Mrs. Moreno reported the same thing, that same night.”

Castiel mulls over the new information. “How reliable are the friends, would you say? Do you think they were sincere in saying they never saw the prowler?”

Claire stares shrewdly at him. “What’re you thinking?”

“There are death omens described as shadows,” Castiel admits. “Visible only to the soon-to-be deceased. Maybe whatever this prowler is can only be seen by its victims.”

Slowly, Claire nods as she mulls the idea over. “It’d explain why Lorna’s husband didn’t see anything, even though he was there when she saw the prowler. And the husband’s healthy, right? When you saw him?”

“Eamon seemed fine,” Castiel confirms.

Claire curses. “So we’re looking at a death omen? But they aren’t dead. Yet,” she adds, a little guiltily.

“Not necessarily.” Castiel winces. “Unless it's a true omen, which are rare, such sightings are often just a disguise for the creature actually performing the killing.”

“What kind of thing can do stuff like this?” Claire asks. “Can’t be a vamp or a djinn.”

“No. And I didn’t sense any demons possessing either Lorna or Ian, or any of the clinic staff.”

“And there wouldn’t be any hex bags on them, since the hospital would’ve cleared them during admission.” Claire breathes out, sharp through her nose. “So where does that leave us?”

“Research,” Castiel says.

Claire groans loudly. “Great.”

The table is quiet for a moment, Claire picking through her cold fries. Castiel debates taking a bite from the pickle wedge on his plate, then decides against it. “What about the third witness?” he asks. “You said there were three in this town.”

“Dana Valdez.” Claire shakes her head. “I went by the café where she works, but the shop was closed. Sign on the door mentioned grief counselling—one of their servers passed away unexpectedly today.” She lowers her gaze dramatically. “Guess which server.”

Castiel sighs. “Dana.”

“Yep.” Claire wipes her mouth, drops the napkin. “Died this morning, mid-shift. I scrolled through her social. They’re calling it cardiac arrest.”

“Isn’t she young for that?”

“Mid-twenties, yeah,” Claire agrees. “Wouldn’t be my first guess for a heart attack victim. But it’s possible, I guess.”

Castiel frowns down at the table, thinking. “Is there anyone we can ask about her behavior before her death? Someone who can confirm what she reported?”

Claire shrugs. “From what I can tell from her social, she was fairly new to town. Not a whole lot of friends. She moved for a fresh start after a bad breakup. The café opens again tomorrow,” Claire adds. “It’s as good a place as any to ask questions.”

Castiel quietly agrees. “The morgue may have answers as well.”

“Mmm.” Claire waves over a server, asking for a shell to pack up Castiel’s sandwich. “We can check it out first thing tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe we’ll catch a break and find out just what the hell is happening in this town.”

Thinking of the odd sensation surrounding the witnesses so far, Castiel wonders whether they will find an explanation for that feeling as well.

* * *

It’s a short drive to the town’s lone motel, and Claire spends the entirety of it fiddling with the radio, groaning disdainfully over the available frequencies before finally settling on a top 40 station.

Castiel parks them close to the main office, the engine thrumming down, idling. It’s getting late; twilight has already fallen, and the office is lit in a tender glow. It feels homey, familiar, although he has never been here before.

The office is situated close by a family autobody, the back lot containing various parked cars, including a few vintage models. He thinks Dean would like the place, the wear reminiscent of Bobby’s salvage yard; a place where Dean could get his hands dirty, dismantling vehicles in order to rebuild them into something better than what they were.

Too late, Castiel chastises himself for bringing Dean to mind again. And he’d been doing so much better today too.

Castiel turns to Claire. “Is this place acceptable?”

“We don’t exactly have a ton of options.” Claire looks at the motel, snorts. “Looks lame, but kinda charming.”

“Not your type of scene?”

“I still sleep in my car, to save money. But this totally looks like something those two lame-os would pick.” Claire glances at him, face shrewd. “They must’ve really rubbed off on you, huh.”

“Not to give away trade secrets,” Castiel tells her, gaze cast out the windshield, “but this is probably nicer than the usual Winchester fare.”

Claire cackles at that, to Castiel’s delight. He can’t remember the last time he has intentionally elicited her laughter.

Castiel unbuckles his seat belt, preparing to handle the rental. But as he swings open the door, Claire says, “Get two rooms. Please.”

Castiel frowns. “Why two?”

Claire rolls her eyes, scoffs. “Old guy and a young girl?” She shifts uncomfortably. “Come on. People will make assumptions.”

Castiel still doesn’t understand. He climbs back inside the cab. “What kind of assumptions?”

“C’mon, Cas. You know.” Claire rolls her eyes. “Your trench coat has ‘skeezy pervert’ written all over it.”

She mumbles the last almost apologetically, but regardless Castiel bristles with immediate offense; he’s worn this outfit for over ten years without being mistaken for anything less benign than an accountant. “Or people might be reasonable,” Castiel says, brusque, “and think we’re a father and daughter—”

Instantly, Castiel realizes his mistake, albeit too late to take back his words. He clams up, but the damage is done; Claire withdraws back into herself, the light smile she had worn throughout the evening having now disappeared entirely.

“Don’t worry about it,” Claire grumbles, snapping off her own seatbelt. She climbs out the truck, adding gruffly, “I can pay for my own room.”

Castiel remains in the truck for a beat, listening to the heater whir and the radio station belt out Claire’s despised pop tunes. He feels wrongfooted and regretful, reprimanding himself for breaking the easy banter they had found. But there’s nothing to do for it now except move forward.

He has to do better. He has to protect Claire’s happiness at any cost.

Castiel kills the engine and follows Claire out into the night.

* * *

Despite the sour note they part on, Claire is kind enough to allow Castiel to borrow her laptop for the night, albeit after a promise he will use it for research only—no peeking at her browser history. It was the same promise Dean would eke out from him every time he borrowed Dean’s laptop; Castiel still doesn’t understand why, though he knows it’s best not to dwell on it anymore. The tablet Claire keeps to herself, tucked away with the contents in her bag.

Castiel retires to his small room a few doors down from Claire’s room, consisting of a single bed with sheets the color of mustard. Brown shag carpet covers the floor, the path from the front door to the back bathroom matted and dusty underfoot.

Now that he’s alone, attempting to gather more information using what little details they have, Castiel finds the usual intel routes are ill-fitted to the case at hand. He knows which law enforcement sites Sam typically uses, knows how to crack into security systems and access the footage for the nights in question. But there’s nothing useful in the lot of it. The town is just too small to take advantage of such security measures.

Sam’s occult websites likewise turn up measly leads, the usual suspects—black dog, reaper—poorly fitting the details of the case. Tying together the prowler’s description and the witnesses’ symptoms leaves too small a lead to follow.

There would be books in the bunker library that better served this pursuit, tailored to the specific subjects he’s investigating. But Castiel can’t read them himself anymore.

Castiel sighs and, bracing himself, pulls out his cell phone. It hangs like a stone in hand, dark and devoid of life, an ominous question asked as he lifts it. Castiel shuts his eyes and powers it back on, looking at it for the first time since leaving the bunker. He holds his breath and waits a full minute before opening his eyes again.

The screen is dark, but this time the darkness hangs with the threat of the unknown.

Castiel’s wings rustle and stir, ruffling with nervous anticipation.

The phone unlocks. Castiel scrolls through the influx of notifications for texts and voicemails. His pulse beats unnecessarily hard as he reviews the call log, up until his heart summarily plummets.

His messages are all from Sam. One missed call from Jody.

Not one notification comes from Dean.

Castiel wilts within himself, just a little, his shoulders sagging with disappointment he never meant to feel. Even though he had told himself to expect nothing, part of him still wishes Dean cared enough to say something, anything—any type of acknowledgement would be welcomed, even the negative, which Castiel hates himself for craving even a bit.

Still. He rallies before he can succumb to wallowing; he knows he can no longer hinge his happiness on Dean’s behavior.

Even if Dean is done with him, maybe the same door hasn’t yet been shut with Sam. Castiel debates whether he ought to bother Sam at this point; it could be they just don’t have enough information yet for a case. Or maybe he ought to wait until after tomorrow’s investigations are over before succumbing to this weakness.

But then the sight of Lorna comes to mind, lying prone in the hospital. How her husband’s hand worries over hers. Castiel thinks of Ian, likewise crushed by some unseen struggle. Of the dead waitress, Dana, a bright young woman he never met.

Castiel pulls up his message log from Sam and, with recalcitrance, types out the beginning of a text message asking for his help.

* * *

Some time in the night, Castiel opens his eyes, and in that opening finds his surroundings have reverted, strangely, to Hell.

He remembers nothing of what came before this moment. But Castiel knows this place by the darkness, the heat, the chaos. The smell of sweat and sulfur, of smoke and burning flesh. The screams of pain and ecstasy found by inflicting it. His body—not a vessel but himself, in all his blazing celestial glory—sweeps along Hell’s corridors with the rest of his garrison, striking down demons in a clash of dark and light.

It’s been years since this night, but Castiel remembers it well. His vanguard cuts through walls of demons as they capture the halls, spearing ahead, goal in sight. The entrance to the Pit is before them, and they slay every demon they must in order to reach it, waves upon waves keeping their goal a hair’s breadth away.

Except this time, his angels fall, one by one, as they approach—clawed open, knifed and gutted. Mouths with sharp teeth grin, bloody, amid the carnage, killing. Until only Castiel remains.

Unlike the last time, the Pit plunges now into darkness, choked closed by the acrid, sulfuric smell. The cavernous room rings with the uneven wail of inhuman voices, the very air saturated by sounds of pain.

A figure appears, lit by an encroaching fire.

A voice begs for him by name.

Castiel knows that voice as intimately as he knows himself. He spies an outstretched hand, bubbling and peeling from the heat, and rushes for it, calling out, “Dean!”

He reaches the figure, grabs for it. But Dean’s hand slips through his, falling back into the blackness of the Pit, screaming as flames consume him.

Castiel scrabbles forward on hands and knees, finding his way by touch alone—but then his palm lands on a forehead, and light flares abruptly as instinct smites the creature, the corrupted touch of it invoking the power from Castiel’s very core.

The empty eye sockets flare brightly, the skin around them already cauterized. This is Jack’s face, but it’s Dean’s voice cracking—calling out _no, please don’t, Cas please stop_.

But Castiel’s hand is fastened tight in place, his strength pouring out as Jack-Dean screams out, dying, wailing—

* * *

His phone is ringing.

Castiel wakes with a start, alarmed by the fact he has _awakened_ at all. How could his attention have wandered far enough to experience something akin to a dream? His heart is thumping rapidly, the nightmare lingering in his vessel’s adrenal system, setting his muscles to trembling. His wings unfurl by their own command, reaching for something _close_. Something here.

Castiel turns his head.

A shadow looms in the corner of the room, too large for the light source being cast. And as his wings reflexively reach for it, the shadow _moves_ , coming closer.

Castiel gapes, at a loss as the shadow approaches, carrying with it a thick, oppressive feeling that clouds his sense of every dimension beyond the current one. His celestial body narrows to this one place and time, pinprick small, crushed by a heavy sensation akin to what he felt at the hospital, near Lorna, but so much bigger, _so much heavier than before_ —

The shadow washes over Castiel, breaking like a wave.

The sensation drops away to nothing, though deep in his bones Castiel remains shaken.

His phone is still ringing.

Uncertain what else to do, Castiel’s dread shifts onto answering the call.

He expects Sam, but it’s Jody, voice tight with fear. “Cas? Where’s Claire? She hasn’t been answering my calls.”

Castiel casts around for the time, finds the motel clock advising midnight. “She has her own room,” Castiel explains. “She was tired driving up here. I suspect she’s probably gone to bed without considering your check-in.”

Jody breathes out. “So she’s okay?”

Castiel nods to the empty room. “There’s nothing to be concerned about.”

Jody’s relief is palpable, her smile audible to his ears. “Thank you for taking care of her.”

“Of course,” Castiel says, even as he feels guilty for the unearned praise. “She’s a strong woman. You’ve done well raising her to care for herself.”

“How is she, really? Have there been any signs of Kaia’s killer?”

“It’s unlikely this case relates to Kaia,” Castiel admits. “But there does seem to be something strange going on.”

“Strange how?” Worry enters Jody’s voice. “Do you need back up?”

“Nothing like that yet,” Castiel answers. “We’re still in the preliminary investigations.” A pause, then Castiel shores up his courage. “Why is Claire so fixated on finding justice on behalf of Kaia?”

“She—well.” Jody stammers, then pauses, working through her words. Castiel waits patiently, as she haltingly explains. “She loved Kaia, even though they were new to each other. Her death broke Claire’s heart. They had—connected in a way Claire seldom allows herself to feel.”

“Oh,” Castiel says, voice rough. His chest swells with warmth and pain for Claire, having gone through that. If only he had known sooner, he could have somehow comforted her at the time, in the aftermath of losing Kaia.

Even after all these years, Castiel knows so truly little about Claire. There are miles and miles to go yet before he can ever hope to make amends.

“Thank you for sharing this with me.” Castiel’s voice softens, warming with conviction. “And rest assured, I will make sure Claire remains safe.”

“Thanks, Cas,” Jody says warmly, as she says goodnight. Castiel hangs up, sparing a moment to review his text history before closing his phone.

Sam hasn’t read his message yet. But he will. Or he should. He was never the type to begrudge Castiel his help.

With the lingering memory of the shadow in the back of his mind, Castiel makes a point of tossing the room for hex bags, or any further clue into what he’d seen. But with no further oddities found, he turns on the rest of the lights and settles down again with the laptop, hoping to make further progress into uncovering what has happened around this town.

* * *

In the morning, Castiel knocks on Claire’s door with a to-go tray of steaming coffee at the ready, purchased from a gas station he found a few blocks over. He hasn’t seen Claire drink the beverage enough times to be certain of her order, but it felt safe to bet on an excess amount of sugar packets. A couple individually-wrapped cookies were brought as backup to earn her good graces.

Claire is grouchy and bleary-eyed as she answers the door, although the clouds clear from her expression as soon as she sees his offering. “C’mon,” she says, grabbing the coffee cup and ushering Castiel inside. Beside the bed her phone is pinging incessantly, vibrating along the nightstand.

“I’ve got news,” Castiel says, dumping the cardboard tray atop the garbage can Claire has somehow already filled.

“Yeah,” Claire says, slumping back onto her bed. “So do I.”

Her phone vibrates again.

Claire motions her chin towards the paper Castiel is holding. “You first.”

“There are more witnesses,” Castiel pronounces. “Or there were—four of them, in the next town over. Dana’s hometown. All dead.” He unrumples the notes he compiled in the night, passing them over to Claire. “A few of them hung on for longer, but most of the witnesses died within three days of their reported sighting. Heart attacks.”

“Fuck,” Claire says blandly. “So whatever this is, maybe Dana brought it with her?”

“I don’t know. But I should try talking to Lorna and Ian again,” Castiel says. “Before something happens to them.”

“Speaking of,” Claire says, waving her coffee over at her phone, which is buzzing and pinging again. “The group chat updated. Looks like Ian died in the night.”

Castiel blinks. “What?”

“Mm-hmm. Gossip is kinda wild about it right now, but it sounds like a heart attack.”

“At his age?”

“Crazy, right?” Claire snorts, tossing her drained cup, which bounces astray from the overflowing can. She crosses to the closet, pulling out a full suit on a coat hanger. “Guess it’s a good thing we saved the morgue for today. Two-for-one check-out.”

Castiel thins his mouth. “Visiting Lorna is more pressing. She’s the only witness we have left alive to question. Who knows for how much longer.”

“Maybe we should split up, same as we did yesterday?”

“I’d rather not,” Castiel says, mulling it over. “But I agree that time is of the essence.”

“Cool. I’ll take the morgue, and you can go check out Lorna yourself.” Claire holds up a patterned blouse against her suit blazer. “This look Fed-y enough to you?”

Castiel suspects the cheap fabric is the source of her worry. “It looks fine. A higher quality than the ‘monkey suits’ Dean and Sam were wearing at your age.”

“They called them that? Oh my god...” Claire snickers to herself as Castiel departs, leaving her to get dressed for the day.

* * *

After his stop at the hospital reveals Lorna’s discharge earlier that morning, Castiel ends up parked halfway down the street from the Moreno household, chin lowered against a misty rain.

The house looks much improved, now that the dust upon the steps and vinyl siding has been glossed and polished, the yard made damp by the drizzle. Lorna’s husband, Eamon, answers the door, and with a little coaxing Castiel manages to obtain an invitation inside.

“You from the health center?” Eamon asks. “About Lorna’s assessment?”

“Yes,” Castiel says after a moment. “I just have to ask her a few questions, to get a sense of whether our center will be a good fit. Is now a good time?”

Eamon shrugs and allows him into the foyer, motioning for Castiel to kick off his shoes on the rug in front of an open closet. Castiel removes his trench coat at Eamon’s behest, accepting the coat hanger offered to him.

Eamon walks him through tidy, antiquated rooms on the first floor, stopping at the base of the stairs. “She’s in bed right now. Don’t know if she’s up for talking. Hasn’t said much since, well…”

“I understand,” Castiel says.

Eamon thumps his palm against the stair banister, squeezing the wood. His chin drops to his chest before bucking up, mouth pursed in a show of strength. “She’ll get better though, right?”

“I hope so,” Castiel says emphatically, a corner of his mouth pulled tight. “Has she said anything yet?”

Eamon’s gaze flicks up the stairs before coming to land back on Castiel, hesitant. “There’s been something, but—” He shakes his head. “Wasn’t expecting her to bring up the past so much. Been a couple times she almost seems lucid, and then she starts calling out a name.”

Castiel looks sharply at him. “What name?”

But Eamon waves a dismissive hand. “Just an old friend of hers from our school days. They’d been thick as thieves when Lorna was single.” His mouth twists. “Kinda dropped off after I asked her out. Haven’t thought of her in years.”

When it becomes clear no more will be said on the subject, Castiel says kindly, “I would like to see Lorna now.”

Eamon shrugs. He motions a broad hand upwards. “Top of the stairs, to your right.”

Nodding his thanks, Castiel takes the creaking stairway two steps at a time. He exits onto a narrow hallway, the floor covered by a cream-colored carpet leading to a bathroom and guest room on the left side, a bedroom on the right. The bedroom door hangs open, and within Castiel can see Lorna laid out on the bed, a quilted blanket tucked beneath her arms much the same as she was in the hospital bed.

The moment he crosses the threshold, a wall of sensation strikes him, overwhelming his senses much the same as it did at the hospital. His wings ruffle and flutter, maddeningly outside his control.

Following instinct, Castiel approaches the bed quietly and sits down on the chair Eamon must have pulled up beside her. He extends a careful hand and gently touches Lorna’s forehead, summoning as much strength as his weakened abilities can muster. Although he can feel his grace reaching out to her, offering help, his healing is rebuffed. In its wake, the looming sensation he felt seems to increase tenfold.

Castiel draws his hand back as if burned, cursing in Enochian, but Lorna remains unaffected. He _knows_ what this is, yet it does not have a name.

Lorna twists her head to the side, brows furrowing. Her lips thin, trembling open. A sound escapes, and Castiel leans in, listening keenly.

Lorna’s breath churns on the inhale, then whispers out, ragged: “Suzanne.”

* * *

Castiel meets Claire at their previously agreed upon location, driving through rain that has intensified into a proper storm. He shakes off his trench coat as he steps into the café where Dana Valdez worked, and finds Claire hunched over her tablet at a side table, her wet hair hanging lank in her face. Her suit jacket is off, hanging to dry on the back of her chair.

“Claire,” Castiel breathes. “I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have walked. I would have picked you up.”

But Claire waves him off, her nose wrinkled comically. “Please. Looks worse than it feels. I’m fine. Besides,” she adds. “This place is warm. I’m drying out just fine.”

Castiel bites his tongue but agrees the café seems cozy; the few customers in the sitting gallery seem comfortable, smiling over the rims of their steaming mugs of coffee. He drags a chair out from beside Claire’s table, legs scraping along the hardwood, and takes a seat across from her.

“So the morgue was mostly a bust,” Claire says, lowering her voice. “But the medical examiner said something interesting about Dana’s cause of death.”

“Did it change from cardiac arrest?” Castiel asks.

“Kind of?” Claire frowns at her tablet, tapping to pull up an article. “Stayed in the same family, but more specific: stress-induced cardiomyopathy. It’s an extreme strain on the heart that makes it rapidly weaken and give out.”

“Sometimes physical,” Castiel murmurs out, reading. “But usually—”

“Emotional,” Claire finishes. “Yeah. It’s also called broken heart syndrome.”

“So both Dana and Ian died of a broken heart?” Castiel frowns at that. “Were they both sweet on someone?”

“Oh my god—what are you, from the forties?” Claire laughs, breathy. “Yes, Cas—the group chat confirmed Ian had this huge crush on some senior girl at school, but he was too shy to ever tell her about it.”

“And Dana allegedly moved because of a bad breakup,” Castiel adds, remembering.

“Right. So we’re looking at a spirit maybe? Something that goes after those who’ve loved and lost, or maybe never got that love given back?”

“I’m not sure,” Castiel says, thinking of the Morenos—of Eamon, yesterday, bowed over kissing his wife’s hand. “Lorna has been married for decades; she doesn’t match the profile of the other victims.”

“Yeah.” Claire sighs. “Maybe there’s something in her background that could fit the pattern? I can ask Jody to run her name through the system, see if there’s anything sketchy to it.”

“And I’ll look online for what type of creature kills its victims with a broken heart,” says Castiel.

“Awesome,” Claire says. “Sounds like a plan.”

* * *

It’s late even by time they pull themselves out of the research frenzy, the café threatening to close. Claire complains that she’s starving, and she wants an actual supper instead of the snacks she’d been buying to justify their extended occupation of a table. She chooses a different restaurant than the night before, claiming a grilled cheese sandwich is what’s needed to really hit the spot.

With the rain stopped and the selected diner only a few blocks away, Claire leads Castiel on a walk through the downtown, chattering quietly about the sights she saw earlier that day—namely, the giant hockey stick the town is famous for, plus the United States Hockey Hall of Fame.

“I didn’t take you for a sports fan,” Castiel says, smiling fondly.

Claire snorts a breath. “Not really. But you see some cool kitschy stuff out there, driving around the country for cases. Did you know there’s like, five different towns claiming they have the biggest ball of twine? We could even hit one of them on the way back.”

“If you’d like.”

Shrugging, Claire stares down at the pavement, kicking at rocks as she walks. “Sometimes I take pictures to annoy Alex; everytime I stop home, I make her look at all the weird shit people make.”

Her mouth twists in a rueful look, making Castiel’s mouth curve warmly. “Then we’ll go see the twine.”

“Okay. Cool.”

As they cross the street, a cold feeling sweeps over Castiel, abrupt as a cutting wind. He holds an arm out in front of Claire, holding her back on the curb, but she has already frozen in place, staring up ahead.

In a wavering voice, Claire asks, “Cas?”

Castiel says quietly, “I see it too.”

The streetlights around them flicker, and a strange figure looms out from the twilight. Dark hair, dressed in black. Face pale and… blurred, as if refracted in a puddle of rain.

“Who are you?” Claire calls out loudly, but the figure is silent as it rushes for them. The shape of it grows weaker as it moves, arms melting, body warped and long now, distorted—

The shadow makes a low keening noise as it crashes into them, cresting like a wave before fading away.

Claire releases a shaky breath. She glances behind her, then down the nearby alley. “What was— _Was that the_ —?”

“Maybe,” Castiel answers. “I think so.” His wings thrash around him, caught in an unseen storm.

Claire curses to herself. “Can we—Let’s go. I want to go back to the motel.”

Nodding, Castiel follows her back to the truck with haste.

* * *

Castiel drops Claire off at the motel and then returns less than an hour later, carrying a takeout order he managed to coax from Claire before he left her in the first place.

Claire has mostly composed herself while Castiel was gone, though she still seems a little distant and shaken, her hands continually retreating to push back her tangle of hair.

“I haven’t eaten,” she points out when Castiel tries to talk to her about it. She refuses his offer for company, squeaking out a weary, “Thanks,” before grabbing the takeout bag and shutting the door to her room.

Castiel waits on the walkway outside for several moments, compelled by the need to reassure her as much as himself that she’s okay. But Claire doesn’t change her mind and Castiel doesn’t begrudge her for it; she had already promised to wear a piece of iron and surround her bed with a salt line before falling asleep. He returns to his room, checking his cell phone for messages from Sam or Jody. But beyond the text Sam sent that afternoon, after Castiel provided him updates— _I’ll look into it_ —Castiel has no idea what either person might find as further leads in this case.

Worst of all, Castiel feels compelled to talk to Lorna again, to hop in his car and drive to her house even though it would be foolish to do at this time of night. She isn’t well, and he can’t help her. But his wings long to carry him to her, forgetting for the moment that they’re broken. That strange sense-memory settles into his bones like an ache.

Indulging such cravings is fruitless. Castiel can better spend his time chasing leads on Claire’s laptop, finding any ties between Ian, Dana, and Lorna that might exist. Since Dana passed first, Castiel figures she may have been the first contacted by the spirit they’re hunting. If their theory that Dana brought the prowler-figure with her holds true, then Castiel wonders whether Ian and Lorna were targeted or just victims of happenstance.

A memory rises to the surface of Castiel’s consciousness, a thought from earlier in the day. On instinct, he types Lorna’s maiden name into the archive of digitized newspapers he’s been scrolling through, accompanying it with the lone given name.

_Suzanne_.

He doesn’t expect any results, but a couple hits crop up. Mostly unrelated, save for one small article about a children’s lemonade stand.

An old photo accompanies the article, showing two children, standing side by side, arms swung around each other. The young echo of Lorna is apparent in the shape of the smaller girl’s nose and mouth, while her friend is a head taller, her smile a bit too serious for a young child. The girl’s dark hair hangs around her face, her features unknown to Castiel, yet somehow eerily familiar.

Castiel reviews the photo again, examining every detail, and is shocked to find the house in the background is one he recognizes, from driving by it with Claire the day before.

It’s the same street Ian lives on. The same house, even, albeit outdated, in a grainy photo from decades ago.

Castiel takes the girl’s full name from the article—Suzanne Bowden, and begins a separate search through the archiving site. When that finds nothing fruitful, he drops it into an internet search engine, and scrolls through pages and pages of results hoping for a match.

One relevant article crops up, freezing Castiel’s hands upon the keyboard: Suzanne’s obituary, from a newspaper printed in the next town over—the one Dana moved from, not too long ago.

Suzanne Bowden, dead in her sixties. A peaceful passing, per the paper. No spouse or kin left in her wake.

Castiel can feel the pieces slotting together, his mind convinced of the _who_ even while the _what_ remains unknown. But if it’s a spirit harming these people then Suzanne seems a likely culprit. He just has to find out what type of lingering presence she may have become after death.

* * *

In the morning, Castiel nearly cannot help himself from knocking on Claire’s door as soon as the sun rises. He is eager to share his findings with her, but he manages to force himself to follow human expectations of decency and circadian rhythms, counting down the clock until an appropriate hour is indicated.

He purchases a fresh coffee from the gas station and walks it back to Claire’s room in time for eight o’clock to chime on church bells. Castiel knocks twice on the door to awaken her. No answer.

Castiel knocks again, harder, listening keenly for any stirring inside the room.

The faintest noises come from the motel room, like pained little sighs. _A nightmare?_ Castiel wonders.

Glancing around to confirm that no one is watching, Castiel twists the doorknob firmly, breaking the lock on her door.

Inside, the motel room is stiflingly dark and still, feeling almost as if it were abandoned. The windows are darker than they ought to be, no ounce of light filtering in between the curtains.

“Claire?” Castiel calls out. He steps into the room and that strange, unnamed sensation rises in fortitude—the ache it brings him is palpable now, the air cloyingly thick with it, to the point where Castiel’s wings feel caught in an impossible wind current, freezing him in place. Castiel digs in his heels and pushes his way through the shadows, approaching Claire’s bed, leaning down. His hand lands on a lump beneath the covers. A shoulder—warm, but still.

Castiel turns on the nightstand light, but the shadows in the room spare no interest to its feeble glow. It takes more than a heartbeat for the lamplight to shine on Claire’s face, highlighting her sickly pallor. But even so the shadow surrounding her lingers, fighting the illumination now present in the room.

Castiel’s blood runs cold.

The shadow gathers around Claire, deepening before bursting at Castiel.

He draws his blade on instinct, bracing for impact. But like before the shadow crashes upon him, swarming like fog, before it disappears.

Castiel gasps out, chilled to his celestial bones. It takes a moment for him to remember who and where he is.

Claire moans loudly, her face contorted with pain.

“Claire,” Castiel breathes, kneeling down. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Claire clutches her chest and burrows facedown into her pillows. Gently, Castiel turns her onto her back, far enough to see her eyes bunched closed, her face sweating, hair sticking wetly against her neck.

“I’m sorry,” Claire burbles, clasping at Castiel’s shoulder. “Kaia, I’m so sorry, I fucked up. I didn’t mean—I didn’t want to. It wasn’t supposed to…”

Castiel waits no longer. He pulls the bedsheets back and hefts Claire up in her pyjamas, light as a feather, and carries her out of the blackened room.

* * *

In the truck, Castiel puts his cell phone on speaker, calling Jody. Gravel peeling beneath his tires, he has to shout above the road noise to be heard.

“It’s Claire,” he repeats, glancing between the road and his passenger seat. Looking at Claire, slumped against the center console, her faint moans rising occasionally in crescendo, punctuated with a panicked, _Kaia, no!_

“What’s happening?” Jody asks. “What’s wrong with Claire?”

“She was fine, but now she’s not. And I can’t heal her, it doesn’t work,” Castiel says. “I’m sorry, Jody. It happened so fast.”

“Okay, okay. Calm down,” Jody says, though Castiel can’t tell whether it’s meant for him or herself. “Is she alive? Where are you right now?”

“On US-53 heading south,” Castiel answers. “I don’t know where I’m going. And yes, she’s alive. But she’s not making sense anymore.”

“Okay. Okay. South, south… Minnesota—Donna!” Jody exclaims. “Can you cut west, head to Hibbing? Donna has a cabin there. It’s not far.”

Castiel memorizes the address, adjusting his mental map of the road ahead of him. “Thank you, Jody. I’ll call again when we’re in place.”

“You better. I’m going to get help sent out to you as soon as I can. Are those case notes you sent me up to date?”

“Yes,” Castiel confirms. “But there’s one more addition: Suzanne Bowden.”

“Bowden, okay. Reason?”

Castiel narrows his eyes at the road. “I think she’s the spirit that attacked Claire.”


	2. PART TWO

Donna’s family cabin resides on a rural skiff of land some distance from the outskirts of Hibbing. Surrounded by fields shorn flat by the fall harvest, the stand of trees enclosing the property marks Castiel’s destination as clearly as a pin on a map. A relieved breath escapes him at the sight of it, even while knowing that finding a safe location for Claire is only the first stop on the uphill battle to make her well again.

The gravel road leading out to the cabin is sloppy with mud puddles, pulling Castiel’s speeding truck into a fishtail more than once. Claire groans loudly in the passenger seat, hands fumbling for Castiel, saying, “You saw her too, didn’t you? You saw Kaia, back in the motel…”

“I saw something,” Castiel agrees carefully, but Claire succumbs to fitful slumber without acknowledging his response.

The cabin itself is a quaint log building with a barn-sized outbuilding situated across a dirt lane, made to feel close to each other by the thick line of trees planted around the perimeter of the land. Castiel parks at a haphazard angle beneath the lean-to at the cabin front door and carries Claire inside, sodden leaves skittering beneath his feet, carried by the drizzling breeze that haunts the frigid morning.

He lays Claire down on a well-worn plaid couch, pulling a nearby crocheted blanket over her in an attempt to quench her chills. Her teeth clack together regardless, clamped down around a moan that rises again in Kaia’s name. Castiel pushes back the hair from her brow and plants his hand down firmly. He tries reaching into her mind in hopes of finding what torments her, but his attempt is rebuked by whatever currently lingers in her veins.

With his attempt at healing failed, Castiel falls back on more human means of protection, scouring through kitchen cabinets for what he needs. He pours an entire box of iodine salt around the couch in a rough circle, the side and coffee tables knocked askew in his rush to protect her, a kitschy lamp falling to the floor with a crash. He draws blood from his hand and marks the room with defensive sigils, and from his hunter’s clutch in the truck, Castiel retrieves an iron chain and drapes it delicately around Claire’s neck, hoping it might draw out whatever spirit might be possessing her. But none of the warding brings any change to Claire.

Heart heavy as a stone, Castiel presses his fingers against her brow and summons again his faltering powers, putting all he has into the glowing touch. But it’s no use; Claire’s pained whimpers continue beneath her breath.

Unable to either see into her mind or heal her, Castiel collapses beneath the realization that he has utterly failed in his guardianship of Claire.

* * *

The cabin door bangs open, hours later, a chill wind accompanying a single pair of hasty footsteps from the kitchen into the humble living room. From his vigil at Claire’s side, Castiel finds a blonde woman in a sheriff’s uniform looking down at him, her mouth pinched by a somber smile.

“Well, hiya,” the woman says, bundling a scarf beneath her arm. She extends a hand. “You’re Cas, right? I’m Donna. Pleased to meet ya.”

“Likewise,” Castiel says, accepting her handshake.

“Ooh. Your hands are looking a little chapped there, pal. Need a pair of gloves?”

Castiel takes back his hand, flexing raw fingers. “Oh. No, it’s—my powers. My efforts to heal Claire are… not working.”

“Ah.” Donna gives a deep nod, a hint of sympathy crinkled around her eyes. She straightens the lamp made from an ungulate’s foot on the side table, her gaze drifting to the blood sigil on the window behind the couch. “Looks like you’ve been redecorating.”

“It was necessary,” Castiel says apologetically, but Donna waves him off.

“Just teasing. It’s okay.” She leans over Claire, between the couch and where Castiel sits on the edge of the coffee table.

Donna brushes the hair back from Claire’s pinched brow, her hand cupped tenderly atop the crown of Claire’s head. Without looking away, she asks, voice soft, “So what happened to her?”

Castiel exhales a long breath and recounts what he knows of the case so far, his chapped hands folding upon themselves, hung in the space between his parted knees.

“When we saw the spirit last night, we thought—” Castiel says haltingly, ashamed. “ _I_ thought the salt circle would be enough to keep her safe. But I was wrong.”

Donna hums thoughtfully, rising from her kneel. “Salt’s usually enough though, isn’t it? I don’t know any kind of spook would be able to cross a line and cause— _this_.” Her hand swoops over the length of the couch, encompassing the entirety of Claire, wrapped up in the fetal position, sweating and moaning softly. “Were the other victims like this?”

Castiel shrugs. “The only two we saw were hospitalized, likely on sedatives. But one of them—an older woman—was similar to Claire in that… She called a dead woman’s name.”

Donna bites the inside of her cheeks. “Shoot. That’s not good.”

“No,” Castiel agrees. “It isn’t.”

Sighing, Donna positions herself on the coffee table beside him, taking up what little space is left on the low table. Castiel notes their proximity and wonders whether he should cede the position completely to her. But Donna merely bumps her knees into his and clasps a hand over his forearm, squeezing firmly before letting go. The two of them settle in beside each other, watching Claire’s every shallow breath.

“Thank you,” Donna murmurs, during a lull where Castiel thought she too might be dozing.

Castiel straightens, frowning. “I don’t see why.”

“C’mon, buddy. You’ve taken real good care of her.”

Castiel shakes his head. “This is all my fault. I failed you, and Jody.” Softly: “I failed Claire.”

“Oh, Cas,” Donna says with affection. “Jody said she was going on this case whether you were coming with or not. Claire could’ve fallen victim all by herself; you saved her from being alone.”

While technically true, Castiel takes no comfort from it. “I made a promise,” he says, stern. “I failed to keep it.”

“Maybe so,” Donna says. “But that happens, unfortunately. This line of work isn’t exactly run of the mill. We can’t know every kind of monster that’s out there; we’re only human. We can’t protect everyone all the time.”

Castiel hums, thinking the description depressingly apt for him in his current state. How he wishes his powers were at full strength again.

After another moment, Donna slaps her hand down on his arm, a friendly gesture. “Say, has Claire drank anything? Has she eaten?”

“Nothing since last night. But she swallowed some water, when we first got here.” Castiel motions to an empty glass positioned offside, atop one of the side tables straightened within the salt circle.

“Okay, good. I can work with that.” Donna hefts herself up from the coffee table, patting Castiel’s shoulder before marching for the kitchen. “You good with chicken noodle soup? There should be a couple packets in the cupboards. I can make the whole batch.”

“I don’t eat,” Castiel calls after her, though he suspects the fact falls on deaf ears.

* * *

Partway into Donna’s supper preparations, the rumble of an approaching engine cuts through the howling westward winds.

Castiel rises instinctively to his feet, knowing which vehicle is now in their midst.

A cowardly part of him had hoped Jody had called an unknown cavalry to help in this moment, but of course the Winchesters were her first choice. They were Castiel’s preferred option too, despite his sour parting with Dean; second to Jody herself, he trusts no one else more to care for Claire’s wellbeing.

He senses Dean before he sees him, that familiar snarl of emotions, now dominated by anger, rising like a wave. The cabin door opens and Dean stomps in, a cold wind kicking at his heels. His stern expression melts the moment he spots Donna, who opens her arms to him for a hug and exchanges murmured greetings in his ear. But as soon as Dean steps away his face turns again to granite, the furrow in his brow deepening as his gaze moves over Castiel.

Castiel’s stomach flips with nerves, torn between anxiety and joy now that Dean is here. He had hoped some time apart would soften Dean’s anger, but if anything Dean’s hatred seems to have only strengthened since they last met.

“No calls, no warning,” Dean spits out, prowling past Castiel. “You just figured you’d wait ‘til the last minute to ask for help?”

“Dean, I didn’t—” Castiel begins, but Dean holds a stern hand up and Castiel silences, watching as Dean leans over the couch, placing two fingers on the pulse point in Claire’s neck.

“How long since she got infected?” Dean asks, gruff.

“You think it’s a disease?” Donna asks from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a tea towel.

“Maybe,” Dean says, distracted. His cold glare lands on Castiel as he repeats, “How long since the attack?”

Castiel shifts his footing. “A day, at most. Assuming it happened when we saw the specter last night.”

“You both saw it?” Donna asks. “Cas, how are you feeling?”

But before Castiel can answer, the front door bangs open again, and another gust of cold air sweeps through the room. Sam kicks off his muddy shoes on the front mat and swings his duffel bag out in front of him. With a quick unzip, he flips on a small device, extending its antennae out ahead of him.

The EMF reader crackles to life in an instant, its electronic keening crackling higher the closer he approaches the living room. Hand hovering over Claire, Sam finds his answer; he snaps down the antennae and stuffs the EMF reader into his pocket. “Definitely a spirit.”

“She’s possessed?” Castiel asks, frowning. “But that shouldn’t be possible. What about the salt circle, or the iron—”

“It’s not a possession, dumbass,” Dean growls. “Ghost sickness doesn’t give a crap about that kind of stuff.”

“Ghost sickness?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, taking position between Dean and Castiel. He drops his duffel bag and, kneeling, delicately twists Claire’s head to face them. “Based on what you texted about the other victims, we figured it was either a vengeful spirit with some kind of biokinetic abilities—”

“—Or something like the buruburu,” Dean finishes. “A fear ghost. One that kills its victims slowly, over the course of three days.”

“Not all the victims died within three days,” Castiel advises. “They also weren’t tied to fear.”

“It’s not a buruburu,” Sam supplies, retrieving a book from his bag. “But maybe one of its cousins. A kuro bōzu, maybe, or a different yūrei—”

“Point is,” Dean says, overloud for the size of the room. “You should’ve called us the second you figured something weird was going on here. We shouldn’t have had to piece this shit together from last-second calls from Jody, begging us to save Claire!”

In the silence that stretches out, after, the echo of Dean’s voice ringing through the room, Castiel says, “I sent you my questions,” directing a sullen look at Sam. He can’t look at Dean now, not when such a white-hot fury radiates from Dean, directed solely at him.

“They were a little vague,” Sam says with a wince. “We would’ve found answers sooner if we had any context for what was going on.”

“So thanks,” Dean spits out. “For tossing Claire to the wolves here. Feels great, knowing you’d rather let her die than ask us for help.”

Indignation flares like a wildfire inside Castiel, balling his fists even as he takes a step forward, his wings lifted in aggressive arcs. He wants to shake Dean for daring to accuse him of such a thing—that he would let Claire die rather than reach out to him or Sam. How _dare_ Dean think that he—

“Guys, guys,” Sam says, quickly stepping between them, eager to block what was quickly evolving into a fight.

From over Sam’s shoulder, Castiel locks gazes with Dean, who likewise stares at him, eyes narrowed with rage.

 _I love you,_ Castiel thinks, _and you treat me like this_.

“Whatever is going on between you,” Sam says quietly—directed mostly at Castiel, a plea for rationality— “Just forget about it for now, okay? Put it aside. We need to figure this out. For Claire’s sake.”

Castiel rolls his shoulders, his wings grudgingly folding away. He breaks eye contact with Dean, gaze falling instead to Claire.

Sam is right; they don’t have time for bickering. If their theory about ghost sickness is correct, and Claire only has three days…

In the quiet, Donna speaks up. “How did you handle the spirit before? The buruburu, or whatever you called it.”

Dean twists his head toward the kitchen, now seemingly intent on ignoring Castiel outright. “We dragged it behind the car with a juiced-up iron chain.”

“Oo-kay... Did you happen to bring one of those with you?”

“Sorry,” Dean says, sarcastic, “but it didn’t exactly crack the top ten must-have accessory list.”

Donna’s eyebrows raise and she holds up her hands, backing into the kitchen. “Sorry I asked.”

Dean shuts his eyes, swallowing hard. “Donna—” he begins, but it’s as far as he gets.

“Everyone,” Sam says. “Please. We don’t even know for sure yet if it’s ghost sickness. We need a game plan if we’re going to save Claire.” Turning, he asks, “Cas, can you tell us anything the victims had in common? Were they the same age, or...” He drops his hands. “Anything.”

From the couch, Claire mumbles Kaia’s name.

Castiel sighs, hands flopping uselessly at his sides. “I gave Jody everything; I don’t know what more you want. Claire and I suspected the spirit had something to do with unfulfilled love. All its victims appear to have died of broken hearts.”

“Okay,” Sam says, nodding. “So we’ll look for spirits drawn to heartbreak.”

“But there're plenty of people out there with their hearts broken,” Dean says to the center fireplace, voice clearly strained. “Any reason these particular vics got chosen?”

“I have some theories,” Castiel says. “But nothing concrete.”

Sam says, “Anything you have, we’ll take ‘em.”

“Then we need to look into Suzanne Bowden, and why her spirit might be haunting this town.”

Dean frowns, head whipping around. “You got a name for the ghost and this case isn’t closed? Why haven’t you dug up her ass and burned her bones?”

“Because,” Castiel says stiffly, “she was cremated, and without any living family, her possessions were either disposed of or donated to various causes in the area. And I’ve been a little busy with…” He gestures fruitlessly around the room. “So. Apologies for not meeting your expectations.”

“Alright, whatever.” Dean throws his duffel bag onto the coffee table, digs out his laptop. “Let’s just get into it. Sam, you try and find this sister-cousin of the buruburu, see if there’s any special way to kill ‘em. I’ll dig up whatever intel we have on this Bowden chick, try and find what trinket could be holding her ghost on this side of the veil.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Sam says, nodding. The brothers swoop into motion, emptying lore books onto every available flat surface, charger cords touted from walls to the kitchen table. Donna asks how to help, and Sam passes her a stack of leather-bound tomes to read.

“And what about me?” Castiel asks, glancing between the book pile and Sam’s unclaimed tablet, wondering which purpose he would better serve.

From the kitchen, Dean answers by filling a mugful of soup and silently holding out to Castiel.

Sighing heavily, Castiel takes the steaming mug and retreats to the living room, supposing in a small way that spoon-feeding her soup will help save Claire.

* * *

The evening drags on without answers. Sam and Donna punctuate the pensive silence with the occasional prospective leads, only to dash theories down with further reading. Dean’s search into Suzanne’s past likewise turns up crumbs, pushing him to research the other victims in the case, trying to find their connection to the spirit.

Castiel quietly cleans up the dishes from supper, washing the pot and soup bowls used by his humans, leaving the cleaned dishes in neat rows on a dish rack to dry. Returning to the living room confirms Claire is sleeping peaceably, for once, her brow smooth and breaths even. Castiel can’t tell whether it’s a good sign; maybe she’s simply too tired to continue calling Kaia’s name.

With a huffed breath, Dean shuts the lid of his laptop. He presses his knuckles into his eyes then shakes his head, glancing around the table at Donna and Sam. “I’ve got no clue into what’s made Bowden turn vengeful, or what she could be using as an anchor. So I’m hoping you got something, Sammy, because otherwise we’re shit outta luck.”

Taking her cues from Dean, Donna sets aside her book and sighs with relief. “Anybody want coffee?” she asks, pushing back her chair. Dean flags out two fingers, to which Donna fires back a thumbs-up on her way into the kitchen.

“I don’t know,” Sam mumbles into his hand, gaze focused on his tablet. “I keep coming back to some kind of yūrei, but the description Cas gave doesn’t match any of their most common depictions.”

Dean levels a flat look at where Castiel lingers in the kitchen. “You’re sure about everything you told us, Cas?”

Castiel straightens, uncrossing his arms. “I’m certain. It was a black shadow barely shaped like a woman. When Claire and I saw her, she—charged at us. Then vanished.”

Sam sighs. “That’s just it—that contradicts everything the lore says about these kinds of spirits. Take the fuyūrei—ghosts that are formless, but also purposeless; they don’t attack people. The jibakurei are vengeful, but they’re fixed to their place of death. And then onryō are vengeful spirits, but they usually have only one target, not a dozen spread across two towns.”

“Are we sure these people are all her victims?” Dean asks, looking coldly at Castiel again. “Maybe some of them are false positives.”

“Yes, Dean,” Castiel says, slow. “I’m certain.”

“Based on what, the fact they had heart attacks?” Dean scoffs. “Because let me tell you, those kill more people than you think.”

“Dean—”

“Seriously, Cas. D’you have anything useful to tell us? Really think about it. Because Claire—” Dean wags a finger, as if Castiel were a misbehaving child “—she needs us.”

“I know that,” Castiel grits out, patience thinning. “Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I don’t care?”

“Honestly? I can’t be sure what you care about these days. I mean, when times get tough, you’re more likely to just up and _bail_ instead of—”

“Whoa, Dean,” Donna says, setting a cup of instant coffee in front of him. “Settle down. We’re all stressed,” she adds, a sympathetic look shot in Castiel’s direction.

Dean swallows thickly, gaze down and darting. Wounded, somehow, by Castiel.

Castiel crosses his arms and looks away. He can’t trouble himself about it right now, not even as his wings unfurl, reaching instinctively to somehow soothe Dean.

The silence stretches, tense as a tightrope. Sam clears his throat. “Is there anything else you can think of, Cas? Anything that might help.”

Shuffling his feet, his wings passing through the kitchen cabinetry, Castiel’s memory stirs.

“There’s something,” he says slowly, mulling it over. “A—sensation.”

Sam sits forward in his chair. “A sensation? What kind of sensation?”

“It’s not—” Castiel flexes his hands, trying to think. “Sometimes I pick up on certain—feelings, from people. If they’re experiencing an emotion strongly enough, it can come through like a prayer. But this—” He exhales roughly. “It’s difficult to translate what’s happening into human experience. I’ve felt this same thing for years, except—drawn out. Muddled. It’s reminiscent of...” Castiel turns in place, hands stirring the air, chasing the words he’s trying to catch. “How a hungry man thinks of food, or a thirsty one of water. Except this new one is ramped up higher than anything I’ve experienced before.”

“So it’s some kind of craving?” Sam asks.

“No, it’s—softer. Gentler. It rises like an ache...” A thought slots into place, his mental block crumbling; as Castiel looks to Claire, he clues in, announcing proudly, “It’s _longing_.”

Sam gapes at Castiel—not at where he’s looking to the living room, but to where Castiel has flung his hand out beside him, motioning without thinking—

Palm open, held directly at Dean.

“That’s not—I don’t—” Dean exhales roughly, his arms squeezing tightly against his chest. “What the hell are you talking about, man?”

Donna turns a wide-eyed stare toward Sam, her brows raised in comical symmetry of his. But there’s nothing funny about how Dean withdraws into himself, retreating from his side of the table.

Castiel’s elation deflates, his hand flinching back. Because of _course_ he knows what this sensation is; he has shored himself up against it for a decade or more, has felt it reflexively whenever Dean was around and his emotions weren’t eclipsed by rage.

Castiel had become so accustomed to its presence that he never knew, never needed a name for it until—

“Dean,” Castiel croaks out. “I’m so sorry. It just felt so commonplace around you, I thought—”

“Great,” Dean bites. “Glad it’s _common_.” He huffs bitterly, gaze averted. His chair scrapes across the floor. “I’m just—” Fingers flag uselessly at the living room, where Dean crosses to with his head hung down, a wide berth given between him and Castiel.

Castiel watches him disappear around the stone fireplace in the middle of the cabin, listening to the steps creaking up to the bedroom loft. He can feel Dean’s pain like an angry shadow, reaching for him even as he moves away. Castiel yearns to follow, but there’s nothing he could say that would repair what he just unveiled.

Still. Castiel has taken an absent step toward Dean when Sam clears his throat loudly, shaking his head.

“I wouldn’t,” Sam says quietly. “Just let him…” He trails off.

Castiel nods. His body feels off-kilter, wings tugging him toward Dean, compelled to soothe the hurt Dean feels beneath his subdued rage. But Castiel himself wants to be anywhere but here.

“Excuse me,” Castiel says hoarsely. Without a further word to Sam or Donna, he opens the cabin door and steps out into the frosty night.

* * *

The outbuilding across from the cabin is painted a weathered red, the white trim around its door pale and peeling in papery flakes. Inside, a sizable machine shop collects dust, the rough wood walls decorated by pinups of mustachioed beefcakes that seem to speak to Donna’s tastes. Tools hang on cork boards around the room, dull and rusted. Sheets of cut-up metal lie in a collected scrap pile against the northern wall.

Castiel paces the room with wings outstretched, trying not to think. He completed a check-in call to Jody before coming inside, assuring her that Claire is resting peacefully while the rest of them are chasing leads. Restlessly, he pulls his phone out again, checking this time for news in Eveleth, then to Dana Valdez’s hometown, ten minutes to the north.

Though the odds are slim, Castiel hopes that Lorna is still alive. That a solution might exist to save both her and Claire.

His wings brush through the walls of the outbuilding, his feathers skirting the puddles outside, skimmed with ice. It’s through his wings that he feels Sam’s approach; he has hardly a moment to fold them back before Sam bangs open the white-trimmed door, the wind bucking against his attempt to come inside.

An uncharitable part of Castiel wonders why his luck is so unfortunate he can never find a moment’s peace. But he clamps that thought down tightly, suffocating it with guilt, and sets his mouth into a pleasant, if grim, smile.

Castiel waits for Sam to acknowledge him, not trusting himself to do so in a way that won’t be misconstrued as rude. He might not want company, but he also will never turn away a Winchester in need.

Stomping mud from his boots, Sam gives him a tight smile. “Dean’s gone to bed, if you wanna come back in. Donna’s pulled out the spare mattress. We’re gonna hot bunk it, taking shifts. You can use my laptop when it’s my turn for forty winks.”

Castiel nods. “Thank you, Sam.”

“Sure.” Sam approaches the workbench opposite Castiel, his knuckles knocking against the rough wood surface. He looks a bit lost, his attention scattered around the shop, snagging on random equipment. The eight-track tape deck on a shelf offside. The metal scrap pile against the wall. His fists tighten, dropping to his sides.

Castiel notes the downturned twist to Sam’s mouth. “Are you alright?”

Sam’s face twitches. He shakes his head. “This—this is where Dean built the Ma’lak box. Before he—before Jack dealt with Michael.”

Castiel’s eyes widen.

Sam lets loose an unsteady breath. “Mom was staying here at the time, so Dean came up on his farewell tour. Wanted to see Donna, have some time with Mom. But me—” his voice cuts out, throat bobbing “—and you? He wasn’t going to—He figured he would just...”

“I know,” Castiel says softly. _He would have left us without saying goodbye._

Sam glances at him, a too-wise expression in his eyes, before looking aside. “He’s been different since Mom died. And I get it—I get why he’s angry. I am too. But Dean shouldn’t’ve… It’s not fair that he’s taking it out on you. But I wish you didn’t—” Sam exhales sharply, gaze honing back onto Castiel. “You just left, Cas. You didn’t even tell me you were going. And if it weren’t for this case, I wouldn’t have even heard from you again, would I?”

Castiel’s mouth seems to have dried up. He says, hoarse, “Sam, I’m sorry. But you saw him. You know I couldn’t stay.”

“I get it. Really, I do. But after, that whole radio silence shtick? It’s old, Cas.” Sam bobs his head, looking down. “Thought we’d gotten past that.”

“We have. This time is different.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Sam says, unable to keep the bitter edge from his voice. He pauses a moment, contemplating. Gauging whether he should say what comes next. “Y’know, Dean’s been doing worse since you left. He’s trying to fake it, but—I can tell. I can tell he’s not okay.”

Castiel notes the earnestness rising in Sam’s expression, observing it with caution. “I’m not coming back, Sam. Not while he’s being…” He gestures futilely at the cabin. “He can’t forgive me.”

“Not yet,” Sam adds.

“Maybe not ever,” Castiel counters. “So I can’t come back. It wouldn’t help anyone while he’s like this.”

Sam’s shoulders droop. “I know. I get it. Hell, you’ve been patient enough already, waiting all these years.” His mouth curves before falling, rueful. “I just never thought you’d give up on him.”

“Waiting?” Castiel frowns, snared by the phrase.

Sam frowns back. “Yeah. For Dean.”

His pulse quickens; Castiel doesn’t understand. “What am I waiting for from Dean?”

Though it may just be the cold, Sam’s cheeks look rosier than usual. He shifts awkwardly, scratching his neck. “Look, I just thought—because you brought up the whole longing thing, you already knew that—”

“Knew what?” Castiel says, crowding closer.

“He—you know.” Sam rubs harder at his neck. “C’mon, Cas, don’t make me say it. It’s not my place.”

Oh.

“You think Dean loves me.”

Sam blinks. “Y-yeah?”

Dully, Castiel asks, “Still?”

“Well, yeah.” Sam huffs. “I thought it was obvious. You can feel it, after all.”

Castiel’s feathers bristle. “Love and longing aren’t the same, Sam.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Close enough.”

“No,” Castiel says. “They’re really not.”

He might not be human, but Castiel is familiar enough with humanity’s relationship with longing. He knows that you can badly want things that aren’t good for you. You can crave things that will warm your bones even as they break them.

Or worse—you can need things without caring for them, the same way you can desire a hot shower and a soft bed without caring about the plumbing or the thread count.

Castiel has learned the hard way that being loved is not the same as being wanted. He knows that Dean’s longing for him amounts to about the same as his desire for greasy diner meals: something he wants around to sustain him. But that isn’t love. Castiel has been through enough to know the difference.

He loves Dean.

Castiel knows this.

He can’t be around a Dean who hates him.

Castiel knows this too.

“Longing is a dream,” Castiel tells Sam, departing for the door. “But love is an action. And I have done all I can to show my love for Dean to him. Don’t try to tell me that his longing counts the same.”

“Cas—” Sam begins, but what comes next is stolen by the howling wind as Castiel steps outside.

* * *

It’s a quiet night. Between Dean and Claire sleeping, and Donna and Sam taking shifts researching, Castiel has plenty of time to himself to dwell on his exchange with Sam. He flips through their collected

books on the yūrei, looking for a description that matches what he saw clinging to Claire in the motel room, his outburst about longing steadily encroaching on his thoughts.

On a whim, Castiel reopens the book and starts reading through it again, this time with an eye out for references to longing as a form of craving. A footnote about hungry ghosts puts him onto an internet search for the more generalized concept of preta. An idea forms the longer he reads about it, an afterlife where desires are always kept an arm’s reach away.

It takes a vigorous shake to his shoulder to snap Castiel out of his trance. He startles, blinking at his approximation of where Donna is standing; his eyes don’t immediately focus on his surroundings, instead flickering through various incorporeal planes before settling back on earth. He returns to his place in the living room, his chair pulled up tight beside Claire’s place on the couch, as close as the laptop charger cord would allow him. The cabin windows are illuminated, dawn’s light streaming in, fitting incongruously with the last time Castiel looked at them. He must have lost time while researching.

Donna’s mouth is moving, saying something, her brow marred by an atypical frown line. She wears a half-unzipped coat and waves an arm behind her, motioning up at the bedroom loft. Distantly, as Castiel comes back into himself, he can hear a commotion upstairs—Sam’s voice and, softer, Dean’s.

“What’s wrong?” Castiel asks, setting aside Sam’s laptop. His wings unfurl, snagged on the longing exuding from Claire and, farther away, from—

“It’s Dean.” Donna’s gaze drops to Claire before meeting Castiel’s eye. “Something’s happened to him.”

Without thinking, Castiel is already moving. “When did it start?”

“I don’t know,” Donna bursts. “I was in town at the Wal-mart buying groceries. I woke Sam up when I came in just now, and that’s when we both heard Dean making noises in his sleep.”

Castiel climbs the loft stairs two at a time, reaching the bedroom at a pace that startles Sam from where he is kneeling beside the queen-sized bed.

From a distance, Castiel hears Dean mumbling something—hand clutching at his chest, face tucking into the pillow. Sam leans close to decipher it, but the words are distorted, garbled by Dean’s gritted teeth.

The sight of Dean snags Castiel like a fish hook. He feels himself being hopelessly reeled in.

“It’s gotta be ghost sickness,” Sam says to Castiel, EMF reader askew on the floor. “Must have caught it from Claire. Did she start out like this too?”

Castiel mumbles agreement, his feet dragging, legs bumping into Sam. Frowning, Sam pushes back from the bed, leaving room for Castiel to kneel down in his place, hands perched carefully on the edge of the bed.

With the sheets pulled down, Dean looks small and pitiful, curled up on his side. His hair is spiky and damp, his t-shirt and pillow darkened by rings of sweat. The furrow in his brow twitches, eyes moving behind closed lids. The air around him is muzzy with the same longing Castiel sensed around Claire.

But not quite the same—Castiel knows Dean’s yearning; its depth and richness has been ingrained in him through years of background exposure, every nuance tucked carefully into the back of his mind, the meaning behind Dean’s feelings kept purposefully shielded from even his own prying thoughts.

This feeling, now—it is all of that and more. Years of longing, stacked into a moment. An instant. Dragged out of the quiet place neither of them dares acknowledge and into the light.

Dean makes another sound; a garbled word. Held captive by his resolve to swallow whatever is being said.

“Dean,” Castiel says, leaning in. His hand reaches for Dean, magnetized.

Sam says Castiel’s name—a distant question from the hazy world behind him. But Castiel is incapable of responding. Incapable of recognizing anything outside of Dean.

Touching Dean is like completing a circuit. His fingertips brush bare skin, and an electric wave jolts through his arm, clamping his hand down on Dean’s shoulder.

It’s different than when he found Claire like this. There are no dark shadows, no spirits looming for him like a wave. Just an abrupt outpouring of energy the likes of which Castiel has never felt before. Not since Hell, where he once cradled Dean’s flayed soul in his grace, and from this touch felt his own essence irrevocably change.

Every emotion radiates from Dean now, the instant Castiel gripped tight his shoulder, each feeling layered and woven into a blanket so thick it becomes suffocating. Notes and nuance reveal themselves, arranged by an unseen hand. A symphony plays out where no one might overhear.

No one, save for Dean and Castiel.

Dean’s eyes crack open, bloodshot, wet with sweat and tears. A hand snakes out from the bed, clasping over where Castiel’s palm is fitted against his shoulder. “You can’t leave me,” Dean says, gasping as the words spill out. “Everybody fucking leaves me, nobody wants to stay, but you—Cas, you can’t—You _can’t_. You gotta—you _have to_ stay.”

His fingers squeeze, nails biting at Castiel’s flesh. Castiel feels Dean’s soul pouring out amid the kaleidoscope of sensations, the full spectrum of the human heart shaken loose. Exposed.

“I’m sorry,” Dean chokes out, looking at Castiel— _into_ Castiel. Knowing, beyond seeing. Saying what he doesn’t mean to say. “Cas, I always want you here—but you’ve gotta hear me, Cas—you can’t go—you can’t just leave me—”

“I’m here, Dean,” Castiel says quickly. “I hear you. I promise you, I’m here.”

Dean shuts his eyes.

The connection breaks as abruptly as it began.

Castiel’s hand recoils, shot back of its own accord. He rocks back on his heels, nearly knocked over until Sam lunges to catch him.

Dean falls still upon the bed, hand hanging out from the sheets, brow slack.

Castiel’s fearful heart pounds. His hands shake as he touches Dean’s wrist, feeling for a pulse.

He finds one—strong and steady. Calm.

Dean inhales deeply, nosing against the pillow. Somehow, fast asleep.

“What the hell was that?” Sam wheezes, rubbing where Castiel’s elbow struck him in the stomach.

Stunned, Castiel struggles upright from where he’s sitting on the floor. His throat feels raw, his voice raspy as he stammers, “That—it was—I think that was—”

It was Dean’s soul. But why was he—

Why, once Castiel touched him, did he—

Castiel’s eyes widen. “He needed me to hear it.”

Sam asks, “Hear what?”

Mind racing, Castiel staggers toward the loft staircase, racing down the steps on shaking legs.

Donna stares wide-eyed from the foot of the stairs, rounding on Castiel as he rushes for the door. “Cas, where are you going?”

“I’ve got an idea,” Castiel croaks back, striding to the cabin door. Fetching his truck keys from his pocket, he spares a glance to Claire, resting peacefully on the couch. “I think I know how to save them.”

Castiel hears his name called out in tandem behind him, but he doesn’t concern himself with Sam or Donna’s worry. He throws the driver side door open to his truck, fumbles the key into the ignition with his trembling hand.

The truck kicks into drive, gravel spraying in the wake of its wheels.

* * *

Castiel completes the drive back to Eveleth in record time, foot plunged on the gas pedal, wipers swishing against the spray of misty morning rain. Without a clear idea of where to find Suzanne’s ghost, he leaves his wings slung open the second he slows down at the town’s service road, ready to catch the slightest hint of her lingering sensation.

Down main street, past the café. Across town. By the hospital. Through the residential areas. Down the street where both Ian and Suzanne once lived.

To the outskirts, by the woods lining the Morenos’ edge of town. Near the entrance of a walking trail.

His wings offer the briefest twitch.

It’s enough. Castiel pulls over onto the side of the road and climbs out from the vehicle, taking with him the empty water bottle Claire left rolling in the passenger side footwell. The door slams shut. He squints against the drizzling rain, the hem of his dress pants growing damp as he marches through the grass toward the path into the trees.

“Hello?” Castiel calls, quiet enough to not be overheard from the road. His wings hang open, passing through tree trunks, the autumnal boughs hanging low from water-logged leaves.

The rain lessens, caught by the branches overhead. The gentle chime of birdsong fades the deeper he treks into the woods. About the time Castiel begins wondering whether he’s wandered too far from his goal, a branch snaps nearby. His head whips around, eyes narrowed in the direction of the sound.

An animal, maybe. Except the woods seem darker in one place, the gaps between the trees shadowed like nightfall instead of midday.

Shoulders squared, Castiel cuts off the dirt path into the brush, branches bending around him, snagging on his trench coat.

“Suzanne?” Castiel asks, ten feet out from the shadow, where the grounds remain impenetrable to the naked eye. Castiel rakes his gaze through the incorporeal planes to confirm whether a presence is standing there, although he doesn’t really need to; his wings have tugged him forward, seeking the shadow. To comfort it, as he has longed to since the sensation first began.

The shadow shifts. Castiel catches a glimpse of dark hair before the shape of it dissolves again, becoming formless. It tries again, growing in height, gathering strength to rush for him—

“Wait.” Castiel holds up his hands. “Suzanne, please. I’m here to help.”

The shadow falters. Castiel chooses to interpret it as she’s listening.

“You're not strong enough to manifest, but you want to talk to Lorna, don’t you? You’ve been trying to find a way. But none of the vessels you’ve found so far could hold you.”

The shadow tightens in on itself, growing small. He reads it as guilt. Loneliness.

Castiel drops to a crouch. He spins off the cap of the water bottle, holding it in his left hand. “I’m not human, but my vessel—I think it could help you. If you want to give it a try.”

The shadow rises again to the height of an average human. Castiel makes up his mind.

Resolving himself, he flicks his wrist.

His angel blade glides into his right palm.

With an efficient motion, Castiel slices open the skin of his neck.

The shadow trembles, recoiling from the curling glow emanating from the cut.

Then, when the glow fades, the shadow breaks over Castiel’s body like a wave.

* * *

By time the drizzling rain dries up, the woman who was once Suzanne Bowden has already knocked on the Morenos’ front door. Lorna’s husband—she shies away from his name, doesn’t _like_ to remember his name—gives entry to the body she inhabits, recognizing the man as a would-be health care worker. There is no point to correcting his assumption.

She removes the man’s dampened trench coat, folding it over her borrowed arm. She allows the husband to guide her toward the stairs. With a hand placed on the lower banister, Suzanne takes the first tepid step upstairs.

Her pulse pounds harder in a heart not her own, trepidation growing the farther she climbs. Her thoughts race through their shared history, long ago, their time together cut short by a fight she ought to have forgiven decades ago.

Lorna always was the one making the first gesture, extending the olive branch even when she had to have known Suzanne wasn’t yet ready to make amends. Surely Lorna will remember her. Surely she hasn’t forgotten all about her friend by now.

Suzanne pauses at the top step. Looks into the bedroom. At its lone inhabitant.

All the things she wanted to say dry up as she stares at her bedridden friend.

Lorna got old, in her absence. Granted, Suzanne did much the same. But she still sees her friend in the shape of her brow, her jaw. In the laugh lines at the corners of her eyes. She can hear Lorna’s voice in her mind, clear as a bell on a summer’s day.

“Oh, Lola,” Suzanne says, soft in the man’s voice. Her hands shake. She clasps them closed, taking the last few steps needed to bridge the gap between them.

A chair hangs ready at the bedside, so Suzanne takes a seat. Hands fold upon her lap, skittish with the gravity of what should have long since been said.

Suzanne reaches out, placing one of the man’s broad palms over the back of Lorna’s hand. So many regrets have collected between them. Too many. So she starts by confessing the worst of her sins.

That awful phone call.

The discarded wedding invitation.

That final cold shoulder, nursed over the smallest slight.

Stupid. So stupid.

All these wasted years.

It doesn’t matter whether Lorna hears her—voice low, whispered in the man’s gravel tones—though Suzanne suspects she might. Something changes in Lorna the longer she talks; it’s in the way she lays beneath the bedspread, the manner in which she breathes. A lightness comes into Suzanne the longer she goes on confessing; she sees the lightness reflected back in Lorna, the moon catching the sun’s rays.

When she runs out of regrets, Suzanne fishes for happier times, recounting childhood tales.

That time her father took them both tobogganing, and Lorna broke her thumb crashing her sled.

Those summers when she and Lorna would play in the creek bed, fishing through the water, catching tiny critters with their bare hands.

The one time when Suzanne was knocked cold falling out of a tree house and Lorna ran around her prone body on the ground, sobbing, _She’s dead, she’s dead!_ loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear.

That time when the two of them were sunbathing in the backyard, and Suzanne first wanted to kiss the freckles dappling Lorna’s back.

So much wasted time. So many things left unsaid.

But with the two of them now—Suzanne having lived a hollow life, half-starved by the words lodged like fishbones in her throat—it’s enough to just get it all out. To let these old wants go and give her friend everything she never meant to carry.

And with Lorna squeezing her hand, eyes flickering gently open, Suzanne can safely say she’s finally ready to hold her peace.

‘Til death do they part.

* * *

After, Castiel comforts Lorna as best he can, holding her hand as she grieves, her sobs stifled behind a balled fist so her husband won’t overhear.

When she’s ready to let him go, Castiel thanks the Morenos for their time, allowing Eamon to shake his hand, wishing Lorna the best luck in her recovery. He then walks back to his truck, chin tucked into the collar of his trench coat, flipped up against the cold wind. He waits until he’s inside the cab, the heater turned up toasty warm, before placing a phone call to Donna, to confirm whether Claire is okay.

“She’s tired, but she’s been perking up for about a half-hour now,” Donna chimes, a smile apparent in her voice. “Want me to put her on the line?”

Castiel thanks her but politely declines. He drops his phone into the center console, beside the water bottle presently housing his grace. His chapped hands rise again to the heater, basking in its blowing warmth.

Being human is exhausting, but Castiel cannot say he feels terribly different than when he had his failing grace. Yet another indication of how far his powers have fallen. Castiel finds that he doesn’t really mind its absence.

Double-checking the cap to the bottle, Castiel ensures it is fastened tight. He pushes the truck into drive, heading for one final destination before leaving town.

* * *

His room key has changed in the day since he’s been at the motel, the lock to Claire’s room likewise repaired. Castiel places his palm on the wood, trying to sense what lays behind it before he remembers himself. Sighing, he returns to the motel lobby instead.

The man behind the counter looks up at his entry, his bushy eyebrows rising with recognition, then dropping with disapproval. “Oh. You.”

“Yes,” Castiel agrees. “Me. Do you still have Claire’s belongings?”

“That your daughter?” The man harrumphs, clambering back from the desk. He returns from the back office with a cardboard box of belongings under one arm, Claire’s backpack carried in his other hand. “I was about to auction off her computer to pay for the broken door. Charged her card for the damages instead.”

Castiel drops a few extra bills from his wallet. “Reverse it, if you can. Allow me to cover the damages.”

The man makes a chagrined noise, but he scoops up the cash nonetheless. He wags a finger, warning, “I’m putting you both on the no-rent list.”

Castiel smiles. “I understand.”

The man waves him off, but Castiel pays him no mind. Scooping up Claire’s possessions, he sneaks a complimentary cookie from the counter, to tide over his growling stomach on his way out of Eveleth.

* * *

Claire is upright on the couch when Castiel returns to the cabin, her hands wrapped around a hot chocolate, a crocheted blanket draped around her shoulders and pooled in her lap. She gives a small smile when she sees him, her cheeks hollowed, dark circles hanging below her eyes. But it’s a genuine grin, one that warms the closer Castiel approaches.

Castiel sits in the rocking chair beside the couch, his foot hooked beneath the front leg to keep it from moving. He pushes the box of belongings across the coffee table, her book bag dropped by the edge of the couch. Claire’s leather coat unslings from around his arm, passed over to her awaiting hands.

“My stuff!” Claire beams, hot chocolate forgotten, arms eagerly pushing into the sleeves of her jacket. “Thanks. I wasn’t looking forward to begging Jody for another laptop.”

With the jacket now on, Claire looks more like her usual self, albeit with more bedhead.

“You’re looking better,” Castiel observes. “How are you feeling?”

“Oh, you know. Tired. Grouchy. Embarrassed more than anything.” Claire’s voice warbles, uncomfortable with the admission. Her fingers pick at a loose thread on the blanket. “I don’t really talk about that kind of stuff. Kaia,” she adds, like it was a needed explanation.

“I understand. You’re like Dean: the ‘stoic hero’,” Castiel says, his pointed use of air-quotes earning him the desired groan and laughter combined. He smiles at her, glancing briefly to the kitchen, where Sam and Dean are gathered with Donna—Dean sitting at the table, the other two crowded around him in quiet conversation.

Dean looks as hollowed out as Claire, his cheekbones lifted, mouth sullen. Castiel looks away before Dean can catch him staring.

To Claire, he says, “I know you don’t like to discuss it, and that you already have Jody for when you do. But if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here for you too.”

The corner of Claire’s mouth crooks upward. She nods slightly, acknowledging the offer. Castiel doesn’t press further; he allows her to change the subject. “Donna caught me up on the case. The ghost sickness. How did you find out what kind of spirit caused it?”

Castiel shakes his head. “I didn’t, actually, but—Sam’s books mention a class of spirits called hungry ghosts. The gaki. Preta. One in particular, the muenbotoke, are spirits of people who have no kin to care for them. To remember them.” He looks down at his hands. “I think Suzanne was something like that. They can become vengeful, but more often than not they just… linger. Looking for help.”

“You think she didn’t mean to kill people.”

Nodding, Castiel explains, “She kept her love for Lorna secret her whole life, believing she would someday find a way to tell her. When she died, she was still haunted by it. All she wanted was to confess her feelings before she could move on.”

“Like how I didn’t get to…” Claire cuts off, teeth worrying her bottom lip, looking sullen at the thought of Kaia. “Guess I can see why she targeted me.”

She seems so lonely, admitting to her heartbreak. Castiel leans in, his voice lowered. “I saw her too,” he reminds her. “Suzanne targeted the both of us.”

“You?” Claire asks, frowning. “Who—?”

Castiel’s heart pounds wildly as her gaze darts across the living room, over to the kitchen. He watches Claire track through Donna and Sam, mental cogs whirring, before stopping on Dean. Her eyes round with understanding.

Claire mouths his name, and when Castiel nods her expression twists strangely, leaving Castiel unsure whether she finds his tastes repellant. Then again, maybe she wasn’t the best person to seek judgement from, regardless how well she knew both him and Dean.

Claire’s eyebrows twitch upward with a delighted sort of surprise. “Huh. Go figure.”

Castiel hums his agreement. “The only reason I didn’t succumb to the illness is that I’m not human. Or I wasn’t, at the time.”

“You’re human now? So if I...” A mischievous look crosses Claire’s face. Quick as a snake, she pinches his arm, his yelp making her laugh. “Wow. Good to know. You’re a total softie now, Cas.”

“So it seems,” Castiel muses. Her smile makes him push on, sincerity rising. He touches her shoulder. “I mean it, Claire. Whatever you need, I’m here for you.”

“Tch. Sap.” Briefly, Claire pats his hand, squeezing it. “Thanks.”

Shuffling in place, Claire returns to her hot chocolate, taking a deep pull from the mug. Castiel takes the cue and leans back in his chair, leaving Claire to fuss over repacking her possessions into her book bag.

Donna comes over, the kitchen conversation drawn to a close. With a deep sigh, she drops a hand onto Claire’s shoulder. “Alright, kiddo. Ready to hike ‘er home?” To Castiel, she says, “I can take her. Been meaning to visit Jody and the girls for a while now anyhoo.”

Castiel hadn’t planned on Claire returning to Sioux Falls with someone else. He glances at her, questioning, but Claire looks as surprised as he does. “Uh, sure. Thanks, Donna.”

“Oh,” Castiel says. “Okay.” He rises from his chair, nodding to Claire. “Thank you for allowing me to come with you.”

“Yeah, well. Thank you for saving my ass.”

Awkward, Castiel helps Claire gather her things, the cardboard box passed to Donna to carry. He follows them to the door, collecting the bags of unused groceries Donna purchased in both arms, hauling them out to Donna’s truck and helping stow them away in the back seat.

The wind ruffles his hair, cold enough to send shivers down his arms and back. He watches Claire climb into the passenger seat, his hand lifted in a wave as they depart. Claire locks eyes with him as they back out, her mouth crooked in a grin as she returns his wave.

Then they are gone, and Castiel lingers outside alone, listening to the engine fade with distance. Tucking his hands into his pockets, he figures it is time for him to leave as well. Except he has no idea where he might turn to next.

There is no direction except forward. Sighing, Castiel returns to the cabin, figuring he ought to review its interior before leaving. Maybe one of them forgot something, giving him an excuse to drive back to Sioux Falls.

It’s not until he’s inside that he realizes the Impala is gone too.

* * *

He shouldn’t be surprised that the Winchesters left without telling him. Castiel knows they’re upset with him; of course they would leave without saying goodbye. They were here for Claire, after all, not him.

It stings, more than a little. To think about it. Castiel tells himself because he’s human now, he feels everything more acutely without his grace acting as a dampener. He wouldn’t give that freedom up, even if he misses the clarity his wings brought to reading his environment.

Castiel blames their absence as to why he doesn’t sense Dean’s presence as he rounds the cabin’s exterior, checking all the doors before returning to his truck. He finds Dean staring out at the backyard, lounging in an adirondack chair with a beer in hand. Looking pallid and cold, even with Donna’s scarf draped around his neck.

Castiel freezes in place, heart pounding in both fright and proximity. It takes him a moment to find his breath. “Where’s Sam?”

Dean shrugs, the bottle jostling with the motion. “Told him to take off. That I’m catching a ride back with you.”

“That was presumptuous,” Castiel replies, his mouth flattened.

“Maybe so.” Dean shrugs again. “I’ll just hotwire my way back if you don’t.”

With leaves crunching underfoot, Castiel takes a cautious step closer, tucking himself away from the chill eastward wind. He watches Dean take another pull from his beer, long and slow, the back of his head illuminated by the buttery light stemming from a cabin window. The rest of Dean’s face is a muted grey, matching the dull autumn dusk that has fallen upon them.

Dean gestures to a picnic table made of rough weathered wood, the bench seat wrapped in frostbitten green vines, claimed by the leafy pumpkins growing wildly at its base. “Mom put these gourds out as her target practice. Back when she was out here. Lined them up on the table, then—splat.” He makes a motion with his hand. “She stuck around here after Bobby took off on her, maybe to lick her wounds. Maybe to avoid me and Sam. Never could quite tell what she really thought of being back with us.”

Dean tips back the bottle, drinking deep. Castiel shuffles in place. He doesn’t know whether Dean is just reminiscing, or if there is a hidden purpose to what he’s saying.

“They were dating,” Dean says casually. “Or trying to, for a bit.”

“I didn’t know that.” Castiel makes a noise in his throat. “Did Bobby ever come back for her?”

Dean’s mouth twists. “Not that I know of. When people walk out like that, it says all you need to know about whether they’re getting back together.”

Ah. Castiel hunches his shoulders against the wind, his gaze cast out to the tree line. Wishing he had a way to escape the tragedy of this conversation.

Dean looks over his shoulder, shifting in his chair. “So you didn’t burn the ghost.”

“No.”

“Then how’d you know it would go away after it said its bit?”

Castiel shrugs. “Many cultures have rituals to help appease their lost souls. The Yu Lan festival. Segaki. They’re meant to help the dead find peace.” He tucks his hands into his coat pockets. “I thought Suzanne might pass over after, if she was lingering due to her unspoken regrets.”

“Yeah, well. That was stupid of you.” Dean’s mouth twitches up at the corner. “And selfless. But mostly stupid.”

Castiel smiles.

They savour a quiet moment, staring out at the lush yard. Abruptly, Dean hefts himself out of the chair, the beer bottle abandoned on his approach to Castiel. Hands pushed into his pockets. Head hangdog low. Gaze averted to the ground.

Castiel holds his breath as Dean settles in beside him, close enough that he can feel the heat coming off Dean’s arm where it brushes against his own. He roots himself in place, ignoring the compulsion to put space between them. To keep Dean at a distance, so that their unsteady truce might yet survive.

Dean rubs a hand over the back of his head, a harsh breath venting through his nose while he resigns himself to speaking. “Cas, the way I’ve been acting toward you lately. It’s not—I know it’s not okay. You’re there for us, come hell or high water, and I shouldn’t have—”

His throat clicks, the chamber jammed. A muscle flexes in Dean’s jaw, and Castiel wishes he could touch him there. At the soft place where his cheek transitions to stubble.

Chest hitching, Dean tries again. “I treated you like you don’t feel things the way the rest of us do. Hell, after this many years of my bullshit, I’m still not sure you do. But if I’m wrong, I’m… sorry. You didn’t deserve that—” His chin bucks down. “I mean ‘don’t’. You don’t deserve that.”

Dean casts his gaze out to the yard. Looking lost. Maybe feeling a little too vulnerable. Castiel can’t really tell what mood his expression contains, although his heart aches, knowing how much such a speech must have cost Dean.

But he has to remain firm. Well-worn words are no longer enough for them.

“I understand,” Castiel says quietly. “Thank you for the apology.”

Dean gives a shrewd look. “But you don’t buy it. Why the hell not?”

“Because you still hate me.”

“That’s not—” Another harsh breath. “I don’t hate you, Cas.”

“Right,” Castiel says blandly. “Hate is a strong word. But it feels true, sometimes. Doesn’t it?”

Jaw twitching, Dean’s eyes narrow, his mouth wound tightly shut. An answer enough, even if Castiel has to read between the lines to obtain it.

Suddenly, Castiel feels tired, too tired to uphold the dynamics they’ve carefully maintained. He can’t keep reinforcing the silence between them, not after he saw what it did to Suzanne. “You need to tell me, Dean. However you feel, both the good and the bad. Because our lives are dangerous, and we never know when… When it could be the end.”

He takes a slow breath in, waiting. But Dean remains silent, hand flexing into a fist.

Castiel’s mouth tightens. “Suzanne died without admitting her truth. And Jack died before I could assure him that I love him. There’s always less time than you think. To make things right.”

Dean snorts, some disbelieving noise that doesn’t like the feel of what’s been said. He narrows a glance in Castiel’s direction. “C’mon, Cas. Whatever point you’re trying to make, can’t it wait ‘til we get home?”

Castiel smiles sadly. “I’m not coming. I can’t.”

Dean’s mood sours perceptibly, the air around them altered. He pushes off the side of the cabin, rounding on Castiel. “So, what? You want me to grovel? You need to see me beg, even after all that—” his hand flaps uselessly “—humiliating bullshit the ghost sickness put me through?”

Oh. Of course. Mouth twisting, Castiel snags on the blow to Dean’s ego. Of course he’s reacting to that perceived shame. “That’s not what I want.”

“Then what? I’m telling you what you want to hear.” Dean crowds in, looking Castiel square in the eye. A finger jabs between them, directed at Castiel’s chest. “Come. Home.”

“No. Not if nothing else changes. And I don’t see that happening.” Castiel shies away from Dean’s gaze, adding, “Not until you can forgive me. For Mary.”

Dean leans back as if struck. “So that’s it. An ultimatum. You won’t come home until I can say it.”

Castiel wishes he could refute, to shout, _It’s not about the end result. It’s about the decision to forgive._ But to explain that would be making the choice for Dean, and so Castiel remains quiet, a silent prayer sent out for Dean to understand.

But Dean only curses, looking to Castiel, crestfallen. “You really don’t give a shit, huh? After all these years, we’re just… One fight and you’re done.”

“You were done with me first,” Castiel snaps, indignant.

“You think that? Even after the ghost sickness. After you saw what it did to me.”

“That wasn’t reciprocal.”

“What d’you mean, not—” Dean’s expression falls, collapsed by shock. “Oh. You don’t—” He cuts off, swallows, voice suddenly thick. “You were just saying it. Telling me what I needed to hear.”

“That’s not what I said,” Castiel sighs, exasperated. “The ghost sickness latched onto your—dislike for my absence. But it was only highlighting a need. An imbalance. You didn’t need to give me anything in return.”

“You really don’t get it. I—” Dean laughs, humourless. Disbelieving. “I don’t…” His throat clicks closed again, voice hoarse when he forces himself to talk. “Cas, I need you to come home.”

“And you also need a shower,” Castiel retorts, “and some sleep. Maybe a cheeseburger.”

“You’re not a goddamn cheeseburger! How can you think—” Dean clamps down like a vise around his anger, shunting it through a couple slow, measured breaths. “You’re _family_. And sometimes family fights, sure, but we get over it. We move on. Stick together. We don’t have to _ask_ each other to stay.”

“I’m not family,” Castiel says. “Not like Sam is. I’m just—useful to you. A tool. There for your comfort, nothing more.”

Looking about ready to pace in a circle, Dean claws his fingers through his hair. “Look, I get that you’re not human, so maybe the details get lost in translation. But family—there’s different kinds out there. Sam. Eileen. Bobby. Charlie. You. Comparing you to any of them—it’s not the same. I don’t think of you the same way I—” Dean huffs a harsh breath. “It’s not the same thing at all.”

“I know that,” Castiel snaps. “You’ve made it perfectly clear. I’m like a brother to you.” He pauses. “What about Jack?”

“We’re not talking about Jack!” Dean growls out an annoyed sound, snared somewhere between anger and defeat. “The kid killed my mom. Then he died, and I’m sorry for it! I’m sorry he fucked up what you and I had.” Dean casts his gaze around, looking like a tiger about ready to leap out of its cage. “You’re family, Cas. I don’t know how else to put it. What more do you need me to say?”

There is more, so much more that Castiel longs to hear from Dean. Sentiments they were both hopeless to express. But he knows that is never going to happen. They were always closer to falling apart than to ever coming together.

A heart-dropping thought hits him: they were never going to move past this. They would never find the words to repair what has broken between them. What Castiel wants is so much more than Dean would ever be able to give.

The thought settles through him, pushing a chill into his bones.

If they were never again going to be who they were, then Castiel must be able to say he tried everything he could to make things right.

And so when Castiel moves to leave, and Dean reaches for him, pulling him back, it doesn’t seem so absurd for Castiel to retaliate by pressing in closer. To lick his lips and wrap his hands around Dean’s head and reel him in, their mouths clashing together.

If words fail, then action—action would explain everything Castiel never had the courage to reveal.

The kiss is unremarkable. A means to an end. But a war breaks out within Castiel, where part of him wishes to memorize every detail—the warmth of Dean’s cheek beneath his palm, the feel of his hair sifting through his fingers—while another part argues he doesn't deserve this, that the selfishness he expressed in kissing Dean means he has forfeited any right to enjoy it.

But that craven animal inside of him wins out the instant he notes the heat of Dean’s mouth where it meets his, and Castiel clings to that feeling, etching it into his sense memory, to hold for all eternity.

And then, when he feels Dean cradle his face—when Dean lifts his chin, tilts his head, kisses him more firmly—Castiel gasps. Heart pounding. Limbs numbing. Jaw falling slack. But Dean merely takes a short breath before diving back in, sealing their lips together once more.

Dean folds his arms around Castiel, stumbling forward as Castiel stumbles back. Their legs tangle, the rough edge of the cabin greeting Castiel’s back. Dean moves to steady him, kissing him all the while, and Castiel clings to Dean like he might lose him, like the second he lets go this will all fade into a dream. But the hand on his waist is real, very real, as is Dean’s chest pressed against his. Dean’s heart pounding into him. His tongue sliding between Castiel’s lips, coaxing him to do the same.

How foolish Castiel feels, now that this has happened, to think that it never could.

A breath shakes loose from him. Dean takes the opportunity to nuzzle against him, their brows touched together. Breaths mingling, warm against the cold.

“Come home,” Dean murmurs, eyes closed. “None of this shit matters without you.”

The hand against his cheek tightens, and Castiel’s heart soars—

And then he remembers.

The Empty.

Trembling, Castiel shakes apart in Dean’s arms. He glances wildly around the yard, scouring for any trace of the shadow come to make good on their compact. But Castiel sees no sign his life is now forfeit.

It takes a moment to remember his grace is stowed away in his truck, and when Castiel does, his breath escapes him all at once. He collapses against Dean, a laugh rattling out from him. Dean holds him through it, even though he doesn’t understand.

“Cas?”

“It’s nothing,” Castiel says hoarsely. “I’ll explain later. But it’s nothing to worry about.”

A long instant passes where Castiel realizes they are still wrapped up in each other, hands upon shoulders, Dean’s arm around his waist. Dean is the first to find it awkward, his grip falling away. Hands flexing like he doesn’t know where to put them except for back on Castiel. Castiel likewise pulls back although he remains in Dean’s orbit, ready to be reeled back in.

The gravity of what just happened hits Castiel all at once. He blurts out the first thought in his head. “So you like me?”

Dean’s cheeks colour a gorgeous rosy hue. “Jesus, Cas—we’re not schoolgirls. We don’t _like_ -like people.”

“But when you say you need me, you—” The thought blooms brightly, a surprise. “You mean you want me too.”

“Haven’t I said it enough times already?” Dean looks astray, bashful as he speaks. “Yeah. Even when I’m mad, I still want you around.”

“Oh,” Castiel says.

“That’s it? You _kiss_ me, and then it’s ‘oh’?”

“Oh, goodie,” Castiel says.

Dean barks a laugh. He leans in, kissing Castiel as he mutters, “I hate you.”

“I know,” Castiel says, tight against Dean’s cheek. “But I’m glad you love me too.”

Dean doesn’t reply, but his hand drifts again to Castiel’s waist, squeezing at his hip. Castiel holds him in their makeshift hug, warm from chest to hip.

Into Castiel’s ear, Dean murmurs, “Let’s go home.”

And for the first time that night, Castiel believes him. He understands what Dean means when he says he needs Castiel near.

“Okay,” he says, taking Dean’s hand. “Let’s go.”

Dean’s hand spasms, reflexive in his shying away. But then his grip tightens, stronger than before.

* * *

They make short work out of securing the cabin. Locking down the windows, the doors. Turning off all the lights. Castiel carries Dean’s duffel bag out, pushing it into the back footwell. Dean climbs into the passenger seat and starts fiddling with the stations. The heater is roaring warmly by time Castiel backs them out of the yard, a parting glance spared to the cabin, the outbuilding.

There’s no direction but forward. Castiel nudges the truck down the lane.

At the end of the road they spy a long black shadow of a car, parked along an approach. Castiel shifts into park and rolls down his window, an arm leaning out. “Sam?”

Sam has his window down too, looking like he just woke up as he leans out the Impala’s driver side. “Hey. Wasn’t sure if you guys would actually work it out, so…” He clears his throat. “Want me to take Dean back?”

Dean makes an indignant noise. But Castiel waves him off, turning back to Sam. “No, we’re fine. Thank you, Sam. We’ll meet you back at the bunker?”

Sam salutes his agreement, already cranking the handle to roll the window back up. Castiel idles, giving him a good head start before following him down the road.

The night is cool but clear, the sky a deep velvet blue. Dean softly hums along with the radio, his hands tapping out a tune. His arm jostles the center console, kicking up the lid. Castiel catches how he turns, curious, to investigate the glow emanating from within.

Dean lifts out the water bottle, frowning. “Is that—?”

“My grace? Yes.”

“You took it out.”

“So Suzanne could possess me,” Castiel says. “Yes.”

Dean blinks. “And you left it in the car. In a crinkly plastic bottle.”

“It’s not going to freeze, Dean.”

“That’s not…” Dean rolls his eyes. “You’re going to take it back though, right?”

“We’ll have to talk about it. But not yet,” Castiel replies. "When we get home."

A narrowed look. “You keeping secrets, Cas?”

“Just one. A big one,” Castiel promises, smiling. “But there may be a solution to it after all.”

Dean doesn’t look terribly assured, but Castiel isn’t afraid. He kissed Dean tonight without the world ending. If they can do that, then they are capable of anything.

 _I love you_ , Castiel thinks again, glancing over at Dean, who is fiddling with his phone in the passenger seat, texting Sam.

He loves Dean, and nothing could ever take that love away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Remmy, Zlata, jad, and expectingtofly for betaing, and to Maria for helping brainstorm me out of the corners I painted myself into. And thank you to everyone who has read this fic, especially those of you who gave me encouragement while it was still in-progress ❤ As challenging as this year was, I'm very grateful to have had you all with me through it!

**Author's Note:**

> now rebloggable on [tumblr](https://vaudelin.tumblr.com/post/639072608541884416/hachikireru-by-vaudelin-teen-23900-words).


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